Makendra falls ill and Maya falls through time

The term 'stop motion' seems to contradict the degree of motion and emotion that went into creating these two pieces. The first was made on a bandha day. With the roads closed due to political protesting, only four participants managed to make it this day. With lower numbers, however, we were able to get deeply involved in making. We thought through the stages of a storyline around one of our key characters from the play, the brother of Maya (our heroine), Mahendra. The twin who falls ill. We had heard that young men tend to fall ill more and women. Why was this? Risky behaviour such as drinking directly from the Hiti? Low immunity because of not having lived in the area? Makendra had just returned from studying in Darjeeling, India and his twin sister who had not had the opportunity to study abroad remained healthy (apart from smoking the odd rebellious cigarette). ​

We tried to remember what we had heard from the doctors and played with all the materials at hand to get the right feel. Check out the Newari delicacy yomari (the big white shape in his stomach) and the samosa as it goes down along with some water containing bad (red because they stain red in the lab) bacteria.

The second stop motion was made so that we could show Maya travelling through time in the play and landing in the river Bagmati 30 years in the past. We realised that some of the little fish that children from Patan had drawn with us would be perfect. I mimed on dry land what it would be like to swim to the surface and Jemi helped Maya to copy. The whole process took its time and demanded creative thinking through teamwork but in the end, we all agreed that the outcome was worth it.