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Mohan Lal Lohar
Mohan Lal Lohar is a blacksmith, morchang maker and performer from Jaisalmer in the Indian state of Rajasthan. He has practised the craft for more than half a century and is regarded as one of the region’s best-known traditional morchang makers.
Mohan Lal was born in Nand village in Rajasthan’s Barmer district to a family of blacksmiths from the Gaduliya Lohar community. At the age of eight, he began assisting his father, Bhavraram Lohar, by handing him hammers and other tools. Mohan Lal moved to Jaisalmer in search of work in the early 1980s and continued the family craft there.
His morchangs are forged entirely by hand in a traditional workshop. The family uses an old dhaman forge with goatskin bellows and wooden components made from rohida. Mohan Lal says that he learned to recognise suitable iron by touch, a skill that took him more than a decade to refine. Making one morchang now takes him about eight hours, and he limits himself to one instrument a day to avoid compromising its quality.
His wife, Gigidevi, assisted him for many years by operating the forge bellows. Their sons Ranmal and Harishankar continue the family tradition and also forge morchangs by hand. In addition to making and playing the morchang, Mohan Lal plays the alghoza and has taught himself to make several other Indian wind and string instruments.
The ML648 morchang and ML650 “Lotus” represented in the catalogue have exceptionally stiff reeds. Despite their roughly forged appearance, the reeds are fitted with considerable precision. The instruments produce a clean, even sound with minimal mechanical noise and accommodate comfortable strokes in either direction. Their frames vary in material and shape, while the reed construction and principal acoustic qualities remain similar.
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