Hope of the homeland.
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Indra Maya Rai, a bhutanese refugee runs a small photo studio inside her hut, along with her husband, in Beldangi-II, one of the seven refugee camps, situated in eastern low-land of Nepal. They have four children. Since refugees are not allowed to work outside the camp and there are no opportunities for work, they started this photo studio to earn the bread for their family, since food ptovided by UNHCR is not quite enough for them..
Bhutanese Refugees are residing here in seven camps, after they were forcefully evacuated from their homeland, Bhutan, almost two decade ago.
In 2007, the U.S. agreed to take 60,000 of these refugees, and some other countries too agreed to take them. Third country resettlement process is ongoing.
Today June 20, is World Refugee Day. Here I’m posting this picture to mark the same hence it will go unnoticed by many of us.
( for more pictures : http://kishorksharma.wordpress.com/hope-of-homeland/ )
Some more images of the camp:
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
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June 21st, 2009 at 10:52 am
Good work! Kishor. Additional pictures related to this post ‘Hope of the Homeland’ in your blog can tell stories more vividly than a mere thousand words hardly can. Monochrome pictures further depict life in those refugee camps and the ‘closeness’ exactly the way you wanted to define specifically elaborating more on Robert Capa’s great words. “If your pictures are not good enough, you are not close enough.” Indeed it’s not just physical closeness but closeness by heart with our emotions that gives heartbeat to pictures we take.
I wish you could share couple of more pictures here in EU along with the link to your personal blog. Not all viewers take time to follow the link and see all those great pictures that you’ve clicked there in Bhutanese refugee camp.
Keep up your good work.
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June 21st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Thanx Shutterbug for the compliment, and taking time to visit my blog. I have added some more pictures as per you request, in fact I wanted to add them yesterday itself, but since I was busy I couldn’t do so.
Thanx again for your nice words.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 1:20 am
Quality post. Instantly took me back to 1994 when my life had crossed path with a young couple that had just fled from Bhutan. They had left their well-off middle class home, work and were living off of a barely minimum flat in Sanepa while at the same time trying to raise two young children.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Vivid expressions of the life at refugee camp!
Cant imagine how it would feel to be a refugee, knocked out by own land, always wanting to return home for years and years and never be able to do so.
Thanks for sharing.
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June 22nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Nice capture Kishor.
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June 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Well presented kishor, your pics in B/W form are truly more expressive.
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June 23rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Vivid expressions reflected well in these captures!! Monochrome pictures (which seems to be your niche) has added magic to depict the emotions very well.
And yes, reality bites, as they are deprived of pronouncing: “HOME SWEET HOME”.
Sometimes I feel like, coining 1 DAY of the whole year to a particular issue is a way out for milking money and nothing else. In fact the problem persists and the more you encounter these DAYS, the more it is unlikely to be solved.
lucida!!, Thanks a ton for sharing these real life pictures!!
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June 23rd, 2009 at 4:40 pm
I would like to thank you all for the comments and sharing your thoughts.
It is really hard to imagine to be a refugee Dreamsky. In their case it is more difficult since they all have proof of being the citizen of Bhutan, but they are living there with the identity of ‘refugee’, for almost 2 decades.
I agree with you Lenscape, to some extent that coining one day to a particular issue is becoming money making business. But I think, in the modern world, where Mass media is disseminating countless issues making it hard to remember any particular or to give importance to any significant issue, it at least provides one day to think about any serious issue.
Thank you all for liking my monochrome pictures. In fact I shoot in colors but I find monochrome images more expressive, so later convert it. Color pictures has it’s own importance but in visual story telling monochrome has it’s own uniqueness. I hope to share more in the future here…
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June 23rd, 2009 at 5:03 pm
heart touching memories each picture speaks it own language.
Great work Kishor!
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