Life can be a tedious treadmill, one where you spend rushing from pillar to post without really getting anywhere at all. This futility, in turn, leaves all of us with a void that we try and fill with material things—money, lust and possessions. Yet the emptiness remains. In these series of photographs, I have tried to explore this merry-go-round that we called life and our attempts to transcend it all. Because even though the journey might be long, in the end, we are all just walking each other home.

(Text & photos: Kaushal Raj Sapkota)

For happiness, we look outward. We seek answers from the supernatural. We try to find them in concrete shapes and sizes and inside four walls. But God could be found anywhere—sometimes even inside a dairy can. (Muktinath, Mustang) 

Yet, we try to fix dates and appointments so that God can listen to us one on one. (Jame Masjid, Kathmandu)

But can we really control time and timing? Is time not in a continuum with its own mind? (Brooklyn Bridge, New York City)

These are complex questions. What’s even more complex is trying figure out whether the quest for happiness is worth deserting our ‘now’. Are we losing more than what we can acquire in the process?  (Chhosher, Mustang)

The answer must be somewhere. There must be a way out of this confusion. There must be an open door, calling us. (Chhosher, Mustang) 

But the journey isn’t easy. (Basantapur, Kathmandu)

A door that can take us to the end of the world, where peace, solitude and happiness exist; where the violins of acceptance play the blues. (Chhosher, Mustang)

Lunacy eventually takes over. (Varanasi, India)

And countless emotions come in ripples. (Dhumba Lake, Jomsom) 

But we eventually get there—we find all the answers. (Janakpur, Nepal)