A National Awardee craftsman, Om Prakash is striving to carry forward his family legacy of wood carving with patience and passion.

Om Prakash Jangir is a Sandalwood Carving Artist from Churu , Rajasthan.

Om Prakash says that his grandfather started this work in the year 1950. At that time he used to make only windows and doors of wood. One day he thought that some creative work should also be done with wood, so he started carving fruit shaped items from wood. While trying, he started doing very fine craftsmanship of wood. He also taught this art to Om Prakash's father and his uncle and Om prakash is also following the same family tradition today and is trying to take this art forward.

Recalling the memories of his childhood, Om Prakash says that his family members wanted him to study, but he was more interested in his family art. Whenever he used to see his grandfather and father working, he wanted to work like them. His grandfather and father had a lot of fame in this art, because of which people from far away countries used to come to his house and click photos with them. Seeing this, he also got inspired to follow in his family legacy and slowly after learning this art from his grandfather and father, today he too has become a skilled wood craftsman.

Speaking about the challenges of his field, Om Prakash says that in today's machine era, the value of artisans is decreasing. He says that fine craftsmanship on wood can only be done by human hands and that too in a very creative way which a machine cannot do. People should value the ability, hard work and creativity of the artisans behind their art.

Talking about his achievements, Om Prakash says that his grandfather was awarded the National Award in 1971 and later his uncle was also awarded the same. Inspired by these awards, he also made many such wooden products which got state and district level awards, but in 2018 he was awarded the National Award for Krishna Leela engraved on a three feet wooden sword.

Sharing his experience of the COVID period, Om Prakash says that during that time all the businesses were at a standstill and he too did not have orders. But he thought that his job anyway was to work on wood by staying at home, so why not continue his work in the same way. Thinking this, he and his family started doing their craftsmanship on various wooden products. Many products were made in his store for which he was suspicious that without orders from customers it might prove to be a loss making proposition. But, by the grace of God, after the COVID lockdown was over, all his goods were sold and today he has many orders from customers.

When asked about his role models, Om Prakash says that he considers his grandfather and all elders in his family, be it his father, uncle or his elder brother, as his role models. He especially considers his grandfather as his role model and gives credit for his success to him as he was the one who started this art. He also takes inspiration while teaching his sons and his students because the new generation gives him new ideas from technology to create something new.

Om Prakash advises the young artists who want to pursue wood craftsmanship that both passion and patience are very much needed in this field. He says that any person who wants to come into this field will need to develop sitting capacity for many hours continuously and at the same time he will need to have a lot of patience to give shape to his creativity because this work is very meticulous work. The creativity of the person and the skillful craftsmanship on wood will decide the future scope for him whose limits are infinite.

To the youth , Om Prakash advises them to use mobile technology wisely and not to get distracted by it. He suggests them to keep patience and keep practising their art to achieve success.