A boy was squatting in a corner of the square in the old town of Bhaktapur

I was wandering aimlessly through the labyrinthine streets of Bhaktapur, the ancient Nepalese capital. Slipping through a web of tangled historic alleys adorned with exquisitely carved wooden window frames, I suddenly emerged into a small, brick-paved courtyard. An old white building stood there, draped in a chaotic, messy nest of overhead power lines, while right at my feet lay an incongruously round manhole cover, sitting there like a misplaced modern relic. Over at the edge of the square, huddled against a wall lined with stacked sacks, a young boy was crouching.

He sat there deeply withdrawn, his head bowed low in intense contemplation. With his arms dangling loosely between his knees, he seemed to be enduring some invisible, solitary burden—looking for all the world as if he were facing the end of days. Becoming slightly concerned, I paused a short distance away to observe him, but he remained as stubbornly motionless as a stone statue. What on earth, I wondered, could have cast such a heavy, melancholic shroud over so young a soul? Had he just been scolded severely by his parents? Or had he lost a prized toy?

Watching his profound dejection began to cast a sympathetic shadow over my own mood. But then, a sudden realization struck me. In South Asia, sitting on one's haunches with heels firmly planted on the ground is a second-nature habit—a default position when chairs are nowhere to be found. To them, this deep squat is actually the ultimate posture of relaxation. I realized I was merely casting him as the tragic protagonist of my own internal drama; in all likelihood, the boy was perfectly content, simply passing the time by watching a column of ants march through the crevices of the manhole cover.