A community initiative and spawning of Ladakh's first professional artists

How art offers a new means of livelihood in the mountainous state

Had Tsering Gurmet Kungyam, 28, been born two decades earlier, he could not have dreamt of doing what he is doing today. Born to parents in Ladakh with limited means and exposure, Gurmet’s passion for sculpting would never have seen the light of day. To his father — a carpenter by profession — breaking and shaping stones is what labour does; that someone might be willing to pay his son a small fortune to do it would never have occurred to him. Nor would he have been able to make his peace with his son’s choice of art as a