Water Crisis in Kathmandu

Water Crisis in Kathmandu.

Water, being one of the basic necessities in human life is one of the many needs that people of Kathmandu are deprived of. This story is a small attempt to show how people of Kathmandu are coping with the crisis.

Water Crisis doesn’t only refer to the crisis of drinking water. Through this body of work I have tried to highlight how in a cultural society like Kathmandu the crisis is having its effect not only in the social but also from the natural context. We have always referred the mighty Bagmati and Vishnumati as one of the holiest river in Kathmandu, yet it has turned out to be one of the most polluted rivers in the country.

People have to wake up at 3 am to fill their buckets, there is always someone fighting in the queue in Dhunge-dharas for a gagri of water. Is this all we live for? Is our life supposed to be this way, fighting for things that are so basic for human survival?

How can the people be creative and move forward in life if they constantly have to think of where their next bottle of water is coming from? Or, what is the load-shedding schedule? Or, where in the valley the petrol pumps are supplying fuel?

With this documentary work I have tried to ask questions, evoke people rather than provide answers and show mere photographs of people struggling for/with water. I want people to think of this story as a metonym of many problems people of the city suffer from and react in some way and hopefully raise a voice.

This is a short documentary piece that I did during a masterclass with photographer  Jodi Bieber. The participants of the workshop were a mix of Finnish and Nepali photographers. The 10-day masterclass was organized by the Finnish Press Photographers Association and Photo Raw Magazine in co-operation with photo.circle.