KATHMANDU: It started out as a picture book written by Kunda Dixit in Japan because he felt, as did his sponsors and friends Arpan Sharma and Kiran Krishna Shrestha of nepa-laya, that pictures made more of an impression. Then came the second book, which were testimonials also called A People’s War.

There was a travelling exhibition and most important a film by Kesang Tseten and Prem BK who did a brilliant job of what Kunda and nepa-laya set out to do which is to record the horrors that survivors face. Kesang and Prem contrast extraordinarily sad stories against the backdrop of a green and verdant Nepal and in between are interviews or the travelling exhibition and the people viewing it.

There was no script, there were no special camera angles, and there was just the truth. There was Akash Khatwe who couldn’t walk because he was shot through the neck and a nerve was hit. His mother didn’t know what to do.

There was Ravin and Ravina who were charred badly and Kesang and Prem show them in silhouettes. The movie required special care in handling or it would have gone over-board.

The passion of people comes straight from the heart like the mother and father who lost their sons to the Maoists. Says Laxumaya Acharya, “Prachanda is the king now why won’t he tell us where our son is better still why doesn’t he kill us?” A bit of unintentional humour creeps in when the husband and wife argue about dates.

The music is melodious, the poetry on the soundtrack touches one’s being, Amrit Gurung’s song is a melancholic ode and Tseten and BK make sure one is given a break between interviews and the sheer unmitigated grief they bring.

There is a story of a young girl who lost her father and the mother says because she’s a

girl she can’t work. Another girl in a similar plight thinks she is going mad and consulates shamans and doctors but the end result is tears.

On the surface all is calm,

Kesang and Prem, in my opinion deliberately show this because they hark back to a time when it really was and then comes the sorrow.

There is also a telling bit about the ex king Gyanendra having his shoes put on by a Colonel while a goat is sacrificed for him and just 700 miles away 60 soldiers are killed.

Taking the king’s coin was Sita Dhakal’s husband who disappeared and all she is left with are his photographs and pension book. In a gut-wrenching scene she strokes the photographs and says that photographs were taken when he was thin. The pension book is of no use to her because she has to prove that her husband is dead or has disappeared.

In the end neither the Maoist nor the Army won and only the civilians suffered.

On a much larger scale there are museums dedicated to Jews killed in the World War II. It would be apt if we had a museum to those who died or suffered in our conflict with Kesang and Prem’s movie as one of the exhibits, Kunda Dixit’s poignant books and the testimonials of people highlighted and anything else that the combined forces of nepa-laya Kunda, the over 2000 photographers who took part in this project can come up with.

In the second book Never Again Baburam Bhattarai says, “The nature of violence is based on history and class. To forget that and to make a classless and non-historical analysis of violence is not helpful. If these pictures had been presented from a class-based historical perspective, they would have been more useful and realistic.” Why violence at all?