Carving Time: The hands that build memory in Nagaland

In a backyard in Mokokchung town, the sharp rhythm of chisel meeting stone punctuates the still afternoon. Dust gathers in the air as fragments of rock fall away, slowly revealing the curve of a shoulder, the suggestion of a face. Here, among heaps of stones hauled in by dumper trucks, 39-year-old Wapang Ozukum works with steady patience—one strike at a time, chiselling permanence into impermanence.

For nearly two decades, Wapang has worked between stone and wood, shaping monuments, memorials, and carved doors that silently guard the thresholds of Nagaland’s history. “This kind of stonework was not known in our place,” he says, wiping his hands on a ragged cloth. “I discovered it myself.”

He remembers his first breakthrough in 2013 in Chungtia village, where he sculpted a bust of the lon