Sujal, sitting on the stairs
Dadagaun, Kathmandu, 2005

I was visiting friends when I happened to see Sujal, a child of my friend’s neighbors. Sujal sits on the stairs outside of his family’s apartment. When he can manage to get out of the loving arms of his mother, his aunt, or one of the neighbor girls, he’s starting to walk.

I believe Sujal—just 18 months old—had just had his bath. His mother had then lovingly applied a small tika to Sujal’s forehead and kajal around his eyes.

The stairs behind Sujal lead to the roof, which is unfinished but provides a space to dry laundry in the air, or vegetables in the sun. The stairs themselves also provide a space to lean pots to dry after they have been washed at the nearby communal spigot.

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(Sujal’s image above was scanned from a 4x6" that I had had printed with a white border. As such, it's not quite a full-frame image; the image is a little tall for it's width, but I was hesitant to crop it any more)

In this photo showing the same steps, you can see two pots drying. After they have been scrubbed clean inside and out, a thin coat of mud is applied to the outside. I believe that while the mud still allows for the transfer of heat, it keeps the pots from getting black from the fire of the family stove.