By Navesh Chitrakar

Rato Machhindranath is the god of rain, so huge crowds gather in Lalitpur around a 32-meter (104 foot) high tower mounted on a chariot during the chariot festival in an effort to ensure good rains and prevent drought.

The highlight of the day is when someone climbs to the top of the chariot and throws a coconut to devotees below. This is an ancient ritual thought to guarantee the catcher of the coconut the birth of a son. Few people believe this nowadays and I think participation is more about enjoying and preserving the tradition.

Every year I saw the same man climb atop the chariot. Every year he threw the coconut down towards the devotees. I really wanted to show in pictures what the perspective of this man looked like.

This year I started searching for him as soon as I reached the chariot and there he was in his favorite spot, up at the top. I could not call him down, as he was sitting so high and the sound of the drums was too loud. I waited for him to come down.

Finally, the man I was waiting for came down. I was very happy to see him descending. He reached me and I introduced myself to him and asked for his name. I was shocked to learn that this man who I had been shooting pictures of for years could not speak. I wanted his help to shoot the picture I had planned and even though my challenge was growing tougher I didn’t give up. I smiled and grabbed his hand to get his attention. He smiled back at me. Once again I tried to ask for his name and he led me to another person who knew him and they told me his name. It was Chakala Dangol and he was 75-years-old.

After spending some time with him I took out the GoPro camera that I had borrowed from a friend and asked if he was willing to take it with him as he climbed the chariot. He gave me a ‘loud’ smile and gestured trying to inform me that he didn’t know how to use the camera. I told him that he did not need to worry or do anything I would arrange everything and he just needed to keep the camera attached to a headband I gave him.

After I explained everything to him he nodded his head “Yes”. I quickly set the camera to shoot a picture every five seconds. As I was adjusting the camera on his head and explaining to him the camera position my eyes fell on the word “Hero” that was written on the camera. He was definitely my Hero. He started to climb back up the chariot and I felt excited and looked on anxiously as he ascended. I went back to shooting pictures of the festival.

After the festival was over we met and I took the camera from him. I had doubts that my plan would have worked and captured the picture I was trying to make, but more than the pictures I was very happy to have met Dangol. He was such a nice and happy person, whose face always had a big smile. I thanked him then took a picture of us together. It was not at all easy to climb the chariot, especially when you are 75. I salute Dangol who left a mark on me with his courage and love for the festival. He also helped me make one of the most remarkable pictures of this event I have taken.

By Navesh Chitrakar

I was on my way to cover another assignment when I got news of a leopard that had wandered into a town. Without wasting any time, I turned my motorbike around and rushed toward the scene. When I reached the area, I saw a huge crowd of people, most of them with big sticks, pieces of bamboo or farming tools, but I couldn’t see a leopard anywhere.

I asked one of the men standing near me and he pointed to the bush and said that was where the leopard was hiding. At that point, a policeman with a gun entered the bush and climbed up a small tree. I heard a big bang as he let off six rounds of gunfire – the sound was really loud. Was the leopard dead? Was it going to come out?

The gun had been fired to scare the animal and make it emerge from its hiding place, but the plan didn’t work. Up until that point, there had been no trace of the beast, only people making fun of it, shouting, looking toward the bush and cracking jokes. The policeman walked out of the undergrowth with his gun.

After a while, all of a sudden I heard a big roar and there it was: a big leopard darting like the wind out into the open.

It attacked a police officer before it came out, but everything happened so quickly that even though I had my camera pointed in the right direction, I only managed to get a picture of it crossing half of my frame. I was late by a fraction of a second.

I ran out from the house where I was standing to take pictures as everything suddenly became blocked. I had covered stories of leopards wandering into towns before, but usually the animal would be trapped inside a room where it would be tranquilized. This time was nothing like that. There were no barriers between the beast and the people, it was literally a case of man versus wild. But the villagers and the leopard shared something in common at that moment – in both of them I saw fear.

The leopard was desperately trying to escape, running from one side to another, but there were armed people surrounding it from every angle. Finally, the beautiful beast was cornered and beaten to death.

My heart was pumping vigorously. After all the running and pushing I was out of breath, but still trying to catch up with the crowd who continued beating the animal even after it had given up. The people looked very proud after they killed the leopard. Some of them were pulling the fur on its face to take away as a souvenir, some were busy taking their picture with the beast.

For me, it was really sad to witness how it was killed. I thought it would be tranquilized and released somewhere safe.

I came back home after finishing one more assignment, and thought as I was lying in bed: was it the beast who encroached on our home, or is it us who have been expanding day by day into its territory? Why didn’t a professional handle the situation? People killed the leopard out of fear, and it died trying to escape.

By Navesh Chitrakar

My journey on the great railways of India began on October 23, 2012. The trip not only marked my first visit to India, it was also the first time that I had ever travelled on real trains because my home country, Nepal, does not have a proper rail network.

Everything about the trains was new to me, which made it really exciting. I started out from Hazrat Nizamuddin railway station in Delhi and headed towards Agra with the help of a railway atlas, a train map and a fixer. I had been provided with the fixer’s assistance for a couple of days thanks to my chief photographer Ahmad Masood, one of the generous people who gave me a lot of help to complete this story. It didn’t take me long to get used to train travel; I understand and speak Hindi, and most of the people on the trains were very friendly and helpful. Most of the time I was doing what I was there to do: observing and trying to capture the most significant and fascinating aspects of India’s railways.

In a country that is the seventh largest in the world by area and the second largest in the world by population, the Indian railway network reaches almost everywhere and carries commuters from one end of the country to the other. The network is a lifeline for India and for the Indians who use it. And why not take advantage of it? People prefer trains because they are a cheaper and faster way to travel. When you travel India by rail, everything is going on around you; it seems like the railway has created its own world and the running of that world depends on the running train.

GALLERY: INDIA’S TRAINS

Every time a train arrives at a platform with its horns blasting, everything suddenly gets going. It feels like the train brings life to the station and when it leaves it carries that life elsewhere; the station falls back to sleep and waits for another train to come along and wake it up again.

I had great hopes when I reached Mumbai, but it was not an easy place to shoot pictures, especially in a train station. I had to get authorisation to shoot and that would have been impossible without the hard work of my two good colleagues, Vivek Prakash and Danish Siddiqui.

We failed to get the go ahead the first time I went to Mumbai, and things didn’t work out as we planned so I had to go back after a couple of weeks and do it all over again. It was a good lesson for us to learn as we grew and explored how to handle challenges and make things happen the way we planned and wanted them to.

The shoot I remember best in Mumbai was when I was photographing the “Ladies Special” train, which is supposed to be for women only. I had a letter of permission with me, but it was still a really tough task to take pictures. As soon as I tried to enter the train, most of the women started shouting at me, telling me that this was a Ladies Special and I was not allowed in. I was surrounded by a group of angry women who were not happy with a male photographer walking in with a camera. It was hard work for me to show my permission letter and press ID and explain to them what I was doing. I spent most of my time trying to calm the women, but managed to stay in one piece and get a couple of shots.

In my three months of travelling thousands of miles by train, I learned about and saw almost all the aspects of India’s railways – both good and bad. I traveled in local trains, passenger trains, general compartments, sleeper trains, 3rd class, 2nd class, 1st class and even in the luxury train known as the “Palace on Wheels”.

The most difficult journeys were on the local, passenger and general compartments, where there are usually no seats to sit down over long distances and the train is overcrowded. It is a common site to see people smoking in these compartments, even though this is strictly forbidden.

The fans don’t work, and forget about air conditioning! The windows don’t even have any glass. People were forced to hang onto the door as the train moved because the compartment was too crowded. These were the conditions that people who didn’t have enough money for a comfortable journey had to suffer through. On the other hand, there were also trains that were luxury itself, with all the facilities of a good hotel.

I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience India’s great railways and to learn a lot from my journey. The running of the network is truly amazing; it is almost unimaginable how services are managed on such a large scale. I think everyone should travel at least once on the trains to feel the real excitement and adventure of India’s great railways, which probably don’t have an equivalent anywhere else in the world. What’s more, every day, new tracks are being laid. The Great Indian Railway is getting greater by the day.

Born and raised in Kathmandu’s Newar community I am familiar with Lord Ganesh. His elephant head attached to a human body makes him easy to identify. Ganesh is honored at the beginning of rituals and ceremonies as we celebrate religious festivals.

This month, I had the opportunity to take pictures of Living God Ganesh after I asked one of my friends who was close to the living god’s family. I was pleased and surprised that the family was willing to accept me since they don’t normally allow pictures to be taken.

The first thing I saw was a six-year-old boy sitting on the sofa and yawning. The boy was the living god but he looked totally different from how he had looked when I saw him on the streets during festivals. In his home, the sofa was his throne.

As he bathed I took some pictures, never realizing before that his hair was so long. What struck me was he was just like an ordinary child. He was very playful and would hide from his mother when she came looking for him. He did his homework and loved to draw pictures. And just like any regular child, he loved to dance.

I thought to myself what makes him a living god? Is it people’s belief or is it just tradition that has been followed from ancient times? Maybe the question will remain unanswered. For me, he was a very sweet boy kept inside a closed box. I never saw him wearing colorful clothes like other children instead he had clothes made especially for different occasions.

After some time, I returned to his home where he was being prepared for the Indra Jatra Festival. He was already crowned with jewelry, in the way I was used to seeing him on the street as devotees bowed down in front of him and offered offerings; he was treated like a god. He looked very different with the makeover. I missed the smile that he had on his face while I visited him that morning.

After all the religious rituals he was carried towards a Kumari House to participate in further rituals. No photo journalists are allowed inside the Kumari house so I stayed outside. I knew that the living god would look out from the window and I waited to see him appear.

What amazed me was that he noticed me despite the crowd of people and he started waving to me. I was very happy to see him. He was then carried towards his chariot which was pulled through the city after the festival began.

A few days later, I went back to his home. I was right on time as he was about to leave for school. His father accompanied him to the nearby school. The living god didn’t have to wear a school uniform despite all the other students wearing one.

At the school his classmates bowed down in front of him and he blessed them by placing his hand on their heads.

After capturing these images, I realized I had seen the two sides of Sambeg Shakya, known as the Living God Ganesh; one without the crown and one with the crown. From deep inside I enjoyed being with Sambeg Shakya but not the Living God.