The Better India · 2 hours ago

At 75, He Still Carves the Tiny Wooden Tool That Helps Turn Thread Into Kashmir’s Pashmina

At 75, Abdul Majeed Zargar is believed to be the last person in Kashmir who hand-carves the Mukh - the small wooden shuttle without which no Pashmina shawl can be woven. He nearly gave up the craft early on, until a group of experienced craftsmen bought his flawed first pieces not to use them, but to keep him going: "If we had not bought them, you would have lost hope." That act of quiet generosity shaped five decades of work, and now Zargar is passing what he knows to his son, aware that the tradition's survival rests on whether someone is willing to learn. He has said he does not know what will happen after him - but that as long as he can hold his tools, he will keep making them. Somewhere in that resolve lives the whole story of how craft, and perhaps much else, endures: not through institutions or awards, but through one person choosing to show up for another at exactly the right moment.