Kathmandu, Aug. 2 -- Printmaking (Chappai Kala) on the walls and agricultural tools has been a tradition passed down through generations in the southern plains of Nepal, mainly in villages bordering the Tarai's forests and rivers. It is done on doorways, in kitchen storerooms, and the pressed ridges of a thekua (a deep-fried sweet snack made from wheat flour). For generations, the Tharu community has practised a form of printmaking that doesn't claim galleries or museums but lives instead in rituals, festivals, and the quiet repetition of domestic life.

Manu Kumar Chaudhary, a young visual artist and recent fine art graduate from Kathmandu University who also wrote a thesis on printmaking in the Tharu community, speaks of this with a mix...