Text by:

Sandeep Goswami
Ph: 9868242090 E-mail: sgoswami24@yahoo.com

Soulful Wood
(Wood carvings on the doors and windows of Kumaoni village houses)
The wizened old man stands framed twice. Once by the intricately carved wooden chaukhat (door frame) and then by the white lime-washed wall that surrounds the door. There seems to be some profound empathy between the fine engravings on the wood and the creased wrinkles on his face. And this profundity is not merely geometric. The intransience of age has etched the human face, the passage of years traceable in every crinkle and fold of the skin, the beauty of wisdom scripted in the lexicon of aging and time. Likewise, the artists hand has worked the wood, each cut of the chisel and every strike of the mallet stands etched on the surface, a vision of beauty and meaning made eternal. We were on the fifth day of our trek to Adi Kailash in the Kumaon district of the state of Uttaranchal. Gunji village, situated at 3500 meters above sea level, is the bifurcation point for the Adi Kailash and the Kailash Mansarovar yatras. And it was here that we noticed the intricate carvings on the doors and windows of almost every house in the village. The dwellings typically have two stories. The ground floor houses the cattle and functions as a store for grain and fodder. The first floor is used as the living quarters. But irrespective of the utility of the door and window, carving and etching, both the frames and the panels is universal. Artistic embellishment of the woodwork seems to be an integral part of house building here. And paradoxically, the rest of the structure is usually completely devoid of any aesthetic enhancement. It is as if the doors and windows are the soul of the house, probably because these openings bring life to it. Without doors and windows, the structure would be a dark, airless tomb, a place fit only for the dead. There is a certain nave simplicity in the motifs and etchings found in these remote mountain villages. And this simplicity embraces a rare beauty, a fullness and depth that clearly brings out the feeling behind the carving. The choice of designs reveals a free, uncluttered mind at work. Anything beautiful, striking or symmetrical has a place in the ornamentation, irrespective of its origin or relevance. An elephant co-exists with a Victorian Arch. The lotus sits nonchalant beside random calligraphic motifs. The beauty is not so much in the collective meaningfulness of the carvings. Rather, it exists in the spontaneity of the artists thoughts and the truthfulness with which he committed his mental image to the wood. Beyond Gunji and situated higher still is Kutti, the last village enroute to Adi Kailash. Local folklore traces the villages lineage to Mata Kunti, the mother of Pandavas in the epic Mahabharata. She is said to have stayed in the area for sometime. The local inhabitants, called Bhotias, have a long cultural history behind them that they have assiduously preserved over generations. The lands proximity to Tibet and the resultant

Buddhist influence shows in their dresses, rituals, dances and arts. And here too, like Gunji, the wooden doors and windows take the pride of place among lasting artistic forms. The engravings here too are profuse, beautiful and artistically done. And equally simple in content and subject. The region is rich in folklore and legends, and has an abundance of Bhojpatra trees. The bark of these trees was traditionally used as paper for writing on in ancient times. But paradoxically, there are no apparent written records about the artists who created most of the wood engravings or about how they came to acquire such finesse in their renderings on wood. The skills have traditionally been handed down to the succeeding generations through first person learning, time and experience honing a novice into an expert. The Kutti village, though cut off from the rest of the world due to snow for almost half a year, still remains an important waypoint for local trade. In ancient times, this trade probably led to whatever exposure the artists gained of the world far and beyond, and the little snippets of knowledge they gained thus is reflected in the choice of shapes and designs found enriching their engravings. Sadly, the number of artists capable of producing such works has steadily declined over the years. The villagers have increasingly migrated to the bigger towns and cities, in search of better earning prospects, as the affluent within their communities and even outside, do not patronize these arts as their preceding generations did. And few want to subsist on the meager earnings that wood carving would get them when more can be earned in cities outside, doing less painstaking work. Still, though low in strength and impeded by factors that never existed before, like shortage of hardwood (deodar for eg. as the tree is considered endangered now and there are strict restrictions on its felling), the skills exist and survive. But the best has come from the times long gone, when the artists were needed, respected, paid well and even revered for the beauty they could envision and create. Even though this artistry exists on mere doors and windows of non-descript villages, situated in the remote Himalayas, it is no less beautiful and valuable than the much-glorified works of art linked with stone sculpture and architectural magnificence. Even in their speechlessness and ordinariness, these chowkhats and pallas (door or window panels) communicate with you across time. The engravings and ornamentations on wood metamorphose into being an unseen companion, leading the mind to perceive the extraordinary within the ordinary. They are a symbolic celebration of life itself. We had trekked to the hallowed precincts of the Adi Kailash mountain, to be blessed by the eternal Himalayas, and came back twice blessed instead. The anonymous craftsmen from the past could touch our very souls across time and leave us marked by their creations forever.