Do pictures, like history, repeat themselves? I found an uncanny similarity between Min Bajracharya's picture of democracy activist Durga Thapa and Steve McCurry's famous photograph of the Afghan girl, Sharbat Gula. The photographers not only recorded and created history with their shots, but neither knew they would follow their subjects and catch them later in life. McCurry didn't even know the name of the girl on the cover of National Geographic. She was barely twelve in 1985, but her image with piercing green eyes became an instant icon of a war weary Afghanistan. Then, 17 years later McCurry traced her and photographed Sharbat the woman. Bajracharya also did not know Durga when he immortalised her on film and the picture went on to become the symbol of the 1990 People's Movement. Durga's 'comeback' in pro-democracy posters 14 years later carries a different message: a yearning for peace.

Binita Joshi Shrestha,
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