The Disappearing Craft Of Likhai

I come from an ordinary farming family. Most of the agricultural land in our village has become barren due to attacks by wild animals. I used to sing chabeeli (the creative interludes and additions to a traditional folksong) at marriages and parties in the village before I became a guide. We have been engaged in homestays and tourism in our village for the past 16 years. In the past year and a half, we have been retrofitting these homestays with wood carvings through Shilp Studio, a collaborative project between Himal Prakriti and IIT Rourkee.

The doors and windows in our old village homes are made in the old traditional style with wood carvings on them. I always used to think, how were they made? Recently, when we were improving the traditional carvings on the doors of our homestay houses, I got the chance to learn about likhai (the craft of wood carving) and in the process, made a wood carved mirror frame.

Alongside guiding, I also enjoy photography. When the opportunity to share our stories came up, I decided to use this time and interest to work on my skills and document the whole process from wood to wood-carved mirror frame.

Wood from the akhrot (walnut) tree is preferred for carving as it is dense and has a fine grain that is good for making minute designs. On drying it takes on a dark and beautiful colour. Wood is extracted from old, thick and straight trees, felled and sized for timber. Today, there are only a few walnut trees left in our region. So instead of walnut wood, people now use wood from surai (cypress) and utees (alder) trees for making doors and windows in their homes.

Traditionally, people in Munsiari would use thhekis (wooden utensils) in their daily lives, made of wood from the trees of akhrot, lwainth (taxus), saandan (oogenia) and gainthi (boehmeria). Even today, people store curd, butter, salt and other foodstuff in these utensils, and so the wood carving of Uttarakhand serves many useful purposes in daily life.

Until two generations ago, the people of Munsiari would build the door and window frames of their houses with wood from old walnut and taxus trees. Walnut Likhai can still be seen in old homes. It was done by the master craftsmen of the Oar community (also called shilpkars and designated as Scheduled Caste).

The photograph above shows an old traditional home in Martoli, a high altitude village in our valley, which though dilapidated, still has its carved doorframes and windows intact for everyone to admire the beautiful walnut carvings. Whenever I came across such old homes, I would find myself wondering how much time it must have taken to carve these. In those days there were no electrical tools to make such big and elaborate frames.

This is a window frame in a 50-year-old house that still stands in my village. Unfortunately, the craftsmen who made it are no longer around, and their offspring do not continue this craft either. The fine work on Likhai and walnut wood carvings requires an investment in time. But today, people who build new homes are not willing to pay the artisans the right amount for their skill and craft. You do not get to see such traditional door frames in new homes anymore, and you can barely find skilled artisans who still know the art of Likhai. The tools used for carving include – chenni, pateshi (both chisels), aari (saw), basula (a cutting tool like a small axe). Most of them are handcrafted by local mechanics quite easily, but they are not available in the market.

Though many homestays in our village are built in the modern style, we are adding wood carved panels in the traditional design onto the existing door and window frames. When we started work, we could not find a local artisan skilled in wood carving. We then had to employ a migrant artisan from Bihar who had come here to work as a construction mason. He helped us train two local artisans. Taking this opportunity, we too enrolled to learn wood carving. Each homestay chose from a set of traditional Likhai designs for their doorframes. These were then carved on walnut wood by the local artisans undergoing training. Once the design was carved onto the wood, the design had to be further refined by using a sandpaper to give it a smooth finish. The carved wood panels were then nailed onto the existing frame of doorways. Today, most of our homestay houses have beautiful Likhai carved wood panelling added to their doorways!

In the challenging times of COVID-19, my friends and I who had been engaged in tourism, got this opportunity to learn carving to make a walnut wood mirror frame. The experience has been memorable for me.

Even though Likhai was traditionally done by men, women from the homestays also joined to learn how to carve. Many of them are wool artisans so they are artists in their own right. But working with wood has been a once in a lifetime experience for them too. Having learnt basic wood carving skills from our now trained local artisans, we have also been able to make attractive traditional wood carvings on items like tea trays and paper holders.

Mor Pithak is a traditional artifact that is used to keep vermillion, sandalwood and rice to be used to put tikas on auspicious occasions. Unforunately, steel plates have now replaced this artifact in most homes, making the Mor Pithak a mere show piece. One of the women homestay owners decided to make one for her home, to revive the tradition of using this carved artifact. Hopefully, this will be used again on auspicious occasions.

With schools closed during the lockdown, girls from our village also joined in and learnt how to carve wood. Women homestay owners made mirror frames with traditional carvings on them, done with their own hands. Our village folk were thoroughly impressed when we put on display the mirror frames made by us during the Likhai training. Our local artisans are now capable of keeping the old designs alive in this region.

The questions I had in my heart about the beautiful carvings on our ancestral houses got answered when I made them with my own hands. I am glad that I also learned a new skill. Perhaps now, this traditional craft of Likahi will once again take its rightful place of pride in Munsiari.

Images by Trilok Singh Rana, Rekha Rautela, Malika Virdi, Lalita Waldia, E Theophilus.