ABSTRACT
Angmo came from a rural offshoot like Tashi Chenzom and Tashi Dolma, the Nyarma nuns, and she too took advantage of opportunities to live differently. In her late 60s at the time of writing, Angmo stayed separately from her peers and her family in a ‘simple house’ in Leh that she had built gradually over the course of a decade. This town house also provided her with an income. Jane Guyer argues that vernacular households implicate different kinds of person through distinct values. She describes four relevant benchmarks that have developed historically: status, labour value, citizenship and asset. Angmo came from a high-status family; she was once married but her children lived elsewhere, and she had retired from formal employment. Unlike Tashi Chenzom and Tashi Dolma, Angmo learned to read and write as a child.
