I fail to understand your raison d'?tre for publishing the photographs by Surendra Lawoti ("Life in a different light", #117). Was it because you guys couldn't come up with any worthy centrefold material? If I understand correctly, the artist's purport was to capture life under two different cultures and juxtapose these cultures side by side. Well, the pictures fail him miserably. Take the picture titled "Suntan" for example: the caption itself notwithstanding, how on earth does that picture depict a Nepali enjoying his sun on top of a boathouse in the Illinois river? In "Rahul" I see a well-fed poseur of a kid about to bully someone and not a hip-hop fan who is amicable with his friends. "Dhiraj" must hate his family and this country from the bottom of his toes because he ain't certainly happy about goin' back home after six years!! The worst of them all is an absolute banal photograph of a room titled "Shiva". The only two pictures that have some sort of a potential are "Thanksgiving" and "Sony". The picture of turkey and dal-bhaat served together in Thanksgiving could have been an excellent metaphor, except one wouldn't know the ingredients of a dish captured in this photograph without reading the caption. The same holds true for "Sony": neither the temple nor the bride herself is visible. Bottom Line: Why would a paper of your repute publish such rubbish-that too after hiking your subscription fees?

Sudip Pokhrel,
Maligaun