Kathmandu:

It’s 31st December 2005, when thoughts of the events of the last year are prominent in the minds of most people. It is a moment when we reflect on all that we have done, how we have been and it’s a time when we make resolutions to improve in ways that we feel we are able to. Sometimes we make those that are slightly over ambitious and are unlikely to last long, but anyway we had at least acknowledged that we could do better in that particular area of life.

Today, the nine children of Class 3, Tashi Waldorf School, Bansbari have been invited to create pictures out of photographs. And so they have gathered this chilly, but fresh Saturday morning at Lazimpat Gallery Café to take a look at my exhibition of photographs. We have arrived from two directions — Bouddhanath and Bansbari in two taxis.

Ironically, that is the name of one of my enlarged photographs of an old tree stump located in the centre of the Muktinath valley down by the riverbed, its trunk divided into two. One is pointing to the very top of the valley, over the Thorang-la pass, the other to the top of a mountain that the great masters who visited this area of Mustang in the past likened to the shape of the mandala of a great tantric deity. ‘Two directions’, I reflect. One to the centre of the mandala and one over the pass, into another valley of existence…

…and we hold the choice. “Where are the keys to make such decisions?” I ask myself as I introduce the children to the picture ‘Two Keys, One lock’, made up of more than 70 photographs of different aspects of the Muktinath valley. It is laid out in the shape of two keys crossed at the centre, where a picture of the sun encircled by a rainbow represents the essential meaning.

It is an interesting moment to reflect on ‘choice’ as the old year slips into history and the New Year brings fresh ideas. Choice that holds residue of the past, as it is because of the way we are, our characters, and our imprinted identity of self that we make decisions in a particular way. We always did it like that and the imprint of that style is so embedded in the mind that it automatically does it that way again and again. And sometimes these ways are harmful to others and we don’t even recognise it!

This is where in the face of New Year’s resolutions we feel this urge to be honest with ourselves, to seek out the root of the matter. For, there are always these two directions of past and future, like wings of the present. I have demonstrated this in my second collection of more than 80 photographs that are initially seen in the shape of an eye in the picture, ‘Pure vision transformed into Organised Confusion’. Yet when the eye is opened out, its two wings, previously folded, reveal a different shape as well as all the photographs pasted on its inside walls. I ask the children what it is; “A chocolate candy”, replies one, “A fish”, replies another, “A butterfly”, says one more.

The children are seated at three different tables. They are focused on the activity, too exited to create other fun, which makes the atmosphere for the three adults and their teacher, Lobsang, who is also present, very pleasant. Large pieces of Nepali handmade paper, hundreds of photos of the Muktinath valley, glue and scissors are distributed to each of the tables and the children are off.

For the next two hours, they are to cut, stick and design new pictures out of the photographs. I ask one table with the four boys what they would like to make and their spokeschild replies that they are making a square with a square inside and a circle in the centre. Okay, why not! The other one of four girls replies they wish to make a circle with a mantra around it and a

Buddha in the centre.

“Two directions, one destination” coming from these two tables’, I reflect to myself. At the other table is a slightly mentally retarded child, who is designing her own picture. I ask her what she is doing, but she does not reply. I watch her work at her own pace and in her own style. Lobsang helps her.

Shapes are universal. Children, people, everyone inherently understands such forms that carry their own secrets. It is enough to just see the shape and the

mind automatically connects to its whole, entire meaning, although we may never actually bother to even consciously acknowledge its symbolic content.

I reflect on the way that certain shapes reappear again and again in our lives and I look over at ‘Two keys, one lock’ hanging on the wall of this small café in Kathmandu. Space, ever possessing infinite control over the four elements that exude into four directions from its central aspect, arranged in their corresponding shapes and colours. Air, fire, earth and water; jealousy, anger, pride and desire held in the grip of ignorance, space too clustered to see its spaciousness, as the four elements continue to carry out their traditional dance in the way we always see things, never changing their ways until they can hear the voice

of spacious wisdom mind calling them to transform their ways.

“Take the positive road, best for all”, whispers one voice “Take the negative, best for yourself”, whispers another.

…Two directions, one choice.