Dressed in a traditional Rajasthani ghaghra and head veil, Rajasthani villager Ruma Devi looks nothing like a fashionista. But she is one of the most reputed designers, known for her quintessential Barmer patchwork and embroidery designs.
Ruma Devi is a popular traditional handicraftsman and a social worker from Barmer Rajasthan. She is the President of Rural Development and Consciousness Institute, Barmer, an NGO in Rajasthan. She started Indian traditional handicrafts with a group of 10 women.
Today, along with empowering 22 thousand women by providing them employment, Rajasthan's handicraft products have been brought to the international level.
Ruma Devi was awarded the highest civilian honor for women “Nari Shakti Puraskar 2018”.
Ruma Devi was born in 1989 in Sangana Kuan Rawatsar, Barmer, Rajasthan. Her father was a small farmer. When she was 5 years old, her mother died. She lived in a joint family. Her father remarried and she was brought up by his uncle and aunt.
She has seven sisters, and she is the eldest among them. Her family was in a financially weak condition. She had to drop out of school during the 8th grade. Then she started taking care of the house. About 10 km for personal work at home and also for neighbors, she used to bring water from a distance in a bullock cart.
The family got her married at the age of 17. In 2006, she went to her in-laws' house in Mangla's Bedi village. They had a son before 2 years of marriage. But due to respiratory illness and financial constraints, she died only after 48 hours. She was deeply hurt by the death of her son. Life was starting to feel hopeless.
To eliminate the negativity of life, she decided to do something so that she could keep herself busy and reduce the financial crisis. Now the problem was what to do? Because she was not much educated, there were no opportunities to get a job. The situation was whether she should do domestic work at someone's house or work as a daily wage laborer.
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She was determined to do something, then she got the idea that in her childhood her grandmother used to embroider beautiful motifs on clothes with sheep's wool, which she also learned from her. Just this thought had to come to her mind, and she got engaged in the work of embroidery taught by her grandmother.
She first started by making bags, but she did not have a sewing machine, so it was difficult to work. The first bag she made was sold for ₹ 70, which was her first earning in her life. With that money, she brought more material to make bags, but the problem was that she did not have a sewing machine to sew the bags.
Then Ruma Devi talked to the women of the neighborhood and formed a group of 10 women. Formed her own support group named Deep-Dewal. Everyone collected 100-100 rupees together and bought a machine.
The machine had arrived, and now there were 10 women, so it was necessary to get work accordingly. Proper marketing was also needed for the sale of her product, for which she went to the nearby villages and started selling her handmade bags and pillowcases.
When she went out for her work in this way, some neighbors started talking objectionable things and also incited the family members.
But Ruma Devi was determined, she listened to the taunts of the family but she did not stop and continued to do her work. She had understood that when no one comes forward to help in difficult times, then they do not have the right to create obstacles in someone's work.
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She was doing embroidery work from home to increase the income of her family. And if someone does not hesitate to create obstacles, even if she leaves her right work, then she herself will be guilty.
Then she came to know about a Barmer-based NGO, Gramin Vikas Evam Chetna Sansthan, which tries to empower women and give them employment opportunities.
Ruma Devi and some women from her group together went to this institute. For innovation in her work, Ruma Devi started working with the women of the group in 2008 by joining Rural Development and Awareness Institute.
Vikram Singh, the founder of this organization appreciated her and also gave her work. He first gave her work for 3 days, and she was so happy after getting it that all the women together completed that work in 1 day.
Ruma Devi got the idea that she should also associate with more women who want to work but do not have work. She went with her group to different villages and talked to the women and their families. Many times there was disappointment, but it did not waver because women were willing to work. Then what was it, she explained to her family members that she would give them work at home, and they would not have to go anywhere.
She added many women with her. Made them work sitting at home. And in 2010 became the president of the Rural Development and Awareness Institute. In today's time, more than 22000 women are associated with her and are running their families with their skills.
Many women had joined Ruma Devi's group and products started being made in large quantities. Then she thought of holding an exhibition to increase the sales of her products. She participated in an exhibition in Delhi for the first time and there her products were well received by the people and sold well.
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The products made by her group have also been displayed at fashion weeks in London, Germany, Singapore, and Colombo.
She participated in the fashion show held at Rajasthan Heritage Week in 2016 and in this fashion show, her products were praised by big designers.
Participated in Fashion Show by TFI at Pragati Maidan, Delhi. In this, she ramped up her design collection with selected designers of the country and gathered international appreciation, and received the honor of Designer of the Year-2019.
Fashion guru and director Prasad Bidappa, superwoman model Nayanika Chatterjee, senior designers Abraham & Thakur, Payal Jain, T.M. Various people from the fashion world including Krishnamurthy and representatives of 240 groups of India's textile industry and business representatives of 40 countries were present.
In 2019, Ruma ji got the honor of 'TFI Designer'.
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Ruma Devi was awarded the Shilpa Abhimanyu Award by the Government of Sri Lanka for the promotion of handicrafts.
On the occasion of International Women's Day in 2019, President Ram Nath Kovind (Now Former President) honored Rumadevi with the Nari Shakti Puraskar for her outstanding work in the field of handicrafts and for her special contribution to women's empowerment.
In 2019, in the country's famous TV show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' (KBC) too, Rumadevi was invited by KBC as a special guest for the special show 'Karmaveer'. During this, Bollywood's famous actress Sonakshi Sinha was present there to support her. Sitting on the hot seat in front of Big B Amitabh Bachchan, Ruma Devi won Rs 12.50 lakh by answering 12 questions correctly with the help of Sonakshi Sinha.
She was also invited by Harvard University of America as a speaker at the annual festival.
Jagdisha's salute to Ruma Devi's confidence. perseverance, dedication, passion, and positive thoughts.
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