Inside the 80-YO Mud Home Revived by a Young Himachali To Preserve Looms, Crafts, and His Village’s Heritage

What happens when mud, water, straw, and cow dung come together?

In Keylong village, Himachal Pradesh, they form an 80-year-old home — a sustainable structure perched on the shoulders of the Himalayan range.

Abandoned for nearly a decade, the house found new life when 32-year-old local youth, Tanzin Bodh, saw its potential. He transformed it into a homestay, managed by local families, offering guests an authentic Himachali experience.

‘Zomsa’, as the homestay is called, is one of three ventures Tanzin has set up in Keylong. The others include ‘Lahol’ — an initiative to preserve Himachal’s culture, and ‘Garsha Looms’ — which creates a marketplace for handwoven artisanal products.

The restoration of the 80-year-old architectural heirloom was led by local women. Through a series of workshops, young people were also trained to plaster the stone facade with the sustainable mix.

 

Elaborating on the parts that needed restoration, Tanzin shares, “Around 50 percent of the home was damaged. There was leakage, and the interiors needed to be done. We used Juniper wood for the restoration of the interiors, and for the walls, we used mud from the area.”

The choice of mud had its perks — it was free from small stones, rendering it a soft texture that allowed it to submit to the water, straw and cowdung mix.

 

 

For the women of Keylong, partaking in the project was like taking a walk down memory lane to a simpler time when such mud homes dotted the Himachali landscape.

One of the women, Angmo, is particularly reminiscent of those times. “Restoration is important because it’s like reviving old traditions. These traditions live on in memory. We might move ahead with the times, but we shouldn’t forget the old.”

Today, Zomsa’s whitewashed walls gleam in the sunlight. Its primal textures merge with the landscape.

 

 

Tanzin sees the homestay as an integral piece of the cultural jigsaw that needed salvaging. When he returned to Keylong in 2019 from Ladakh, where he was pursuing a master’s in entrepreneurship, he remarked how his village had changed.

 

“More and more youth were migrating to cities. The farmers were leaving their fields, people from other parts of India were keen on taking over. Mud homes started disappearing; in fact, the one we have restored is one of the last few remaining,” he shares. 

Once a success story in the eyes of culture, Lahaul was slowly losing touch with its roots. And Tanzin knew he had to act quickly.

Reviving a cultural handiwork and empowering the locals

Knitting and weaving are deeply rooted in the culture of Lahaul. The story of the region’s iconic socks, crafted from indigenous sheep wool, is as intricate as their patterns. Making them demands both precision and skill — four double-pointed needles are used to knit each pair, beginning with the cuff, followed by the leg, and finally the heel.

Their main draw is the eye-catching patterns; credit goes to the ‘dashi’ pattern, which comprises eight types of motifs, such as lari, bumchang, yunglung, kuru, thigma and kyog. The dashi are laid out in rows in different colours. It’s a coming together of beauty and ingenuity.

 

In 2021, in a further bid to preserve the creative integrity of the craft, the hand-knitted socks and gloves of Lahaul and Spiti were awarded the GI tag. A local NGO ‘Save Lahaul-Spiti Society’ was granted the status of registered proprietor of the tag.

The society’s president, Prem Chand Katoch, attributes the growing success of weaving and knitting in Lahaul to the late 1800s, when Moravian Missionaries began arriving in the region. The story goes that one of their wives, Maria Heyde, set up the first organised knitting school in Keylong, encouraging women to hone their knitting skills, reimagine indigenous motifs, and bring their creations to the market.

Now, through Garsha Looms, Tanzin is pushing for a renaissance of this craft form.

 

Sanjeeta, one of the women who has been working at the looms for four years, calls this association a validation of her creative skills. “Earlier, we were knitting the socks in our houses for our families, as gifts. Now, we feel like we can use our traditional knowledge of knitting to earn for ourselves and our families.”

Sanjeeta, like many of the women, never had a business idea on the cards, but a conversation with Tanzin changed this. “He told us that we are capable and that if we were making something that could preserve our heritage and take it ahead, we should earn a fair price for it,” she shares.

For Sanjeeta Katoch, self-confidence is the main takeaway from this association. Tanzin, meanwhile, sees it as a mode of future-proofing their cultural heritage from disappearing altogether. Currently, 30 women are being empowered through Garsha Looms. 

 

The third pillar in Zomsa Culture Hub is Lahol, which aims to conserve and promote Lahaul’s cultural heritage, crafts, and traditions — while creating livelihood opportunities for women, youth, and farmers, and promoting organic and sustainable practices in agriculture and tourism.

 

The way Tanzin sees it, these ventures are a silent rebuttal to a cultural shift that is threatening the Himachali landscape.

On your trip to Keylong, you can explore the various ways in which Tanzin is making this possible. Once you’re through with it, exchange pleasantries with the land by way of visiting the various iconic spots.

These include the Kardang Monastery, one of the most prominent monasteries in the Lahaul region, which dates back to the 12th century and houses ancient murals and a vast collection of Buddhist scriptures. Then there’s the Keylong Bazaar, where the most beautiful keepsakes and delicious foods are available on a shoestring budget. Make a day trip to the Khardang village surrounded by apple orchards, barley fields, and snow-capped peaks.

At the heart of it all is a simple story unfolding in Keylong — one that is shaped by the locals’ intent to hug their culture before it walks into oblivion.

All pictures courtesy Tanzin Bodh

Sources

'Lahauli hand-knit socks, gloves given Geographical Indication status' by The Tribune, Published on 6 November 2021.

'The Moravians' by Asia Harvest.