Kathmandu, Aug. 9 -- For Pragya Mainali, everyday life carries stories that aren't so ordinary as we make them out to be. The everyday grocer, a chicken coop, a rusted tap outside a village home, and a century-old building in a crammed settlement in Patan-she captures them with her hand, forever immortalising them in her sketchbook.

For many of us, there is little time to pause and notice the small details that make up our world. We walk past the intricately carved pillars of a pati (rest house) in an old Newa settlement. We do not look twice at classical windows that demand attention, and we pseudo-look at towering architecture, sitting grandly, through our phone's camera. But Mainali wants to jot down these missed details. She finds a ...