Nepali People Cycle of life

Like children that have never been scolded, people smile even though they don’t know why. It’s their way of being grateful that they are alive at the bottom of the Himalayas. You feel small when you grow up between mountains. You know your value and the value of life. You are grateful for every grain that sees the Sun after a tremendous amount of work and love you had invested in it.

Himalayas give life and death a different perspective. You understand that all is ephemeral and fighting it is useless, like a cloud trying to keep still on a peak. It all moves away, transforms and comes back with a different shape, but same essence.

So people smile at the ruins of their own existence because they know they can rebuild it back from the ashes, after it all burned down. And if they also burn with it, they are ready for the next coming, for which they accumulated all these smiles.

They get upset and angry at the burden they have to carry uphill towards the sky. They lose themselves, hurt others and get injured, they drop their loads and start again like Sisyphus, but they forgot to let go of their smiles.

Therefore, the gesture without the meaning still keeps them going, through dust,, clouds and avalanches. They know their place in the cycle, that’s what makes them immortal.

text: Simina Cernat