Gorkha Ram

Gorkha Ram was an Indian blacksmith and morchang maker from Lohar Basti in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. He came from the hereditary Gadiya Lohar blacksmith community, in which metalworking and musical-instrument making were passed down within families. By the early 2020s, Gorkha Ram had been making morchangs for more than 45 years.

The maker worked in a small open-air workshop beside his home. Documentary material from 2012 shows his working process. As he finished each instrument, Gorkha Ram tested its sound, inspected the gaps between the reed and the decks against the light and adjusted them with gentle taps of a small square hammer, with the frame resting on a heavy anvil.

Gorkha Ram worked with iron, brass and stainless steel, making both traditional and unusually shaped morchangs. The range of his work was remarkably broad: the comparatively compact brass “Mor” morchang weighs around 50 grams, whereas the giant “Rajasthan” morchang measures 17–19 centimetres in length and weighs 450–500 grams.

The instruments were made individually and did not form a strictly standardised series. Even morchangs bearing the same name differed noticeably in pitch, reed stiffness, gap size and the level of inharmonic background noise. Consequently, the external form of Gorkha Ram’s instruments did not always determine their musical properties: each example required individual testing and evaluation.

In his later years, Gorkha Ram worked alongside his son Viraram. His son carried out most of the heavy forging, hammering and filing, while Gorkha Ram handled the final installation of the reed and refinement of the sound. As late as November 2023, the maker was still producing tailless morchangs in brass and steel.

Gorkha Ram passed away in 2024. The family craft was continued by Viraram and the maker’s grandson Junjaram, who had already begun making his own morchangs independently during his grandfather’s lifetime.

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