Sh. Malchand Ji Kalakar was an artist par excellence who was self-taught in the art of miniature carving on sandalwood. He had once told his children that he had seen a dream where God asked him to do miniature carvings to earn a living. He lived up to the dream and soon sat down to work. People in the sleepy town of Churu disregarded his words as that of a maverick. Soon afterwards, when his exquisite carving was ready, it caught the attention of a local businessman. Such was the impact of his skill on the businessman that MALJI was told that whatever he made would be bought by him. In the 1950s, for the first piece that he sold to the Nahta family, he got a princely (in those days) sum of ₹20 for his effort.