“Outside the ancient monastery, timeless silence weaves through this living land. Cloaking towering
mountains. Gliding across barren deserts. Flooding hidden valleys. Descending upon deserted
villages. Everything everywhere, mystically wrapped in absolute quiet. Like an invisible spirit,
Ladakh’s soundlessness, spirals towards the cobalt-blue canopy. The blinding sun silently glares
“Outside the ancient monastery, timeless silence weaves through this living land. Cloaking towering
mountains. Gliding across barren deserts. Flooding hidden valleys. Descending upon deserted
villages. Everything everywhere, mystically wrapped in absolute quiet. Like an invisible spirit,
Ladakh’s soundlessness, spirals towards the cobalt-blue canopy. The blinding sun silently glares
down. Burnished light and searing heat cascade onto the eternal quiet of this lonely landscape. And
this primitive silence flows past the dark storms within me.”
– prabir c Purkayastha
In the context of the modern world, it is difficult not to have borrowed aspirations. Especially in a “developing” space, it is close to impossible not to be insecure and judgmental about your own or others’ choices. There’s always an adopted normal—a pedestal from which one can look down. Around fifty years ago, Ladakh was culturally initiated into a very similar process, one that demanded both judgments and adopted aspirations. Over time, academic excellence became the norm, and everything else was deemed secondary and irrelevant. As a result, craft in Ladakh became more of a compromise than a choice; it was only when you were rejected by the system, bent and broken, that you would consider venturing and exploring beyond.
The story of Ajang (Uncle) Lamchung Tsepel is a valid testimony to the dangers of this process. He was a boy orphaned at a very young age, raised by his aunt and burdened by the responsibility of sustaining whatever was left of his family. When he didn’t show any academic promise by eighth grade and things looked bleak for his family financially, his aunt asked him to pick up pottery. Pottery was a craft assigned to his village during the reign of King Jamyang Namgyal; it was practiced by only a handful within that village of some thousand people.
Initially, he made a few pots imitating the works of others around him. From the very beginning, Ajang Tsepel was a natural at the craft and picked up the art and basic skills instantly. However, when he asked for criticism and help, the few potters around him told him he was good already and didn’t need any help. He knew that wasn’t true. He knew he had a lot to learn, and people were either arrogant or just not passionate enough to pass on the art.
Still, believing he was good enough and fueled by the positive feedback, he went to sell his first batch of pots in the city. He had made pots with round bottoms, and they wouldn’t stand on flat ground without wobbling. Because of this inability to stand straight, the pots never made it to different homes. Ajang Tsepel remembers coming back to the village at the end of that day, upset but driven to perfect the craft. In pottery, without realizing it, he had found expression and release that he had never imagined. In pursuit of refinement and perfection, he decided to learn from a master in the village, not realizing that the master had no interest in teaching him. He was politely sent away a few times, but Ajang Tsepel had his mind made up. He was a smoker at fifteen, and on the pretext of borrowing cigarettes from the master, he would go to his house while he was working and silently watch him. That was how Ajang Tsepel made his way as a potter—by observing and putting in hours of practice. Later, for a short while, he was accepted as an apprentice under an old potter. With him, Ajang Tsepel went much deeper in his learning, exploring his style and putting his aesthetics and mind into his pieces.
Slowly, as the craft died with the last generation of potters passing away, he started getting recognized in the city. With little or no competition in the market, he was doing better than he had thought he would as a potter.
Today, Ajang Tsepel is the last traditional potter in the region. With him lies the key to eons of knowledge that had migrated from across the border. However, this craft still doesn’t hold the apparent “security” or regard that other professions do. The newer generations are under more pressure than ever to conform to societal norms of the “ideal”: the ideal behavior, lifestyle, professions, mindset. It is a tragedy that the value of expression still gets trampled under the need to belong and the skill of rote learning. No one is more cognizant of this than Ajang Tsepel. He knows the importance of passing on his art, but with no one passionate enough to inherit it, he is increasingly becoming apprehensive. At this point, it is evident that he feels nothing less than helplessly lost.
So is the story of the last traditional potter of Ladakh. He is a man with a unique skill set, yet he is generally ignored by time and people who are unaware of his significance and his art form. Let’s see if this primitive storm that Purkayastha mentions stirs anyone out of their oblivion.
