Archana Kumari: Carving a future by design

Archana Kumari overcame Bihar's staunch social norms to take her craft to the world

For a girl born in a village in Ramnagar, Bihar, life is pretty much already chalked out. She gets to study a bit during her childhood, learns the household chores as she grows, takes care of her younger siblings, is married off young, has children, looks after her in-laws and husband, cooks and keeps home and hearth together.

She doesn’t leave the village to travel to the United States alone at the age of 14. She doesn’t get to study in a metropolitan where she stays in hostels. She doesn’t start a company or live alone or refuse to marry and pierce the social mores the village has observed for centuries.

But 34-year-old Archana Kumari has done precisely this. She has defied the norm and broken away from tradition. In doing so, she has planted new dreams in the minds of the girls back in her village.

With five siblings, Kumari’s life was proceeding the usual way (she studied at the local government school) until she took up traditional Sujini embroidery work for the late Viji Srinivasan’s NGO, Adithi, that operated in the area. (Sujini, which is protected under the Geographical Indications of Goods [Registration & Protection] Act of 1999, involves simple stitches embroidered into motifs that tell a story.)

During the course of her association with the NGO, Kumari met an American girl who was working on a research project in the area. And before she knew it, Kumari – who was looking to break free from the conventional way of life – was selected to go to the US for an exhibition organised by Asia Society.

Around this time, Dastkar founder, Laila Tyabji, and her team came to Bhusara village near Ramnagar to work with the villagers and exhibit their traditional designs in Delhi. Kumari got to know Tyabji well and the two became very attached to each other.

Tyabji visited her house many times, met her parents and played the role of mentor, philosopher and guide to the young girl. So influenced was Kumari by her that she decided “never” to marry (like Tyabji) and instead carve an independent life for herself. “It always troubled me that girls couldn’t do what they wanted to. There was no freedom. I couldn’t accept this,” says Kumari.

Tyabji urged the girl not to jump to such quick decisions. “I explained to her that for me to choose to remain single – being urban, educated, having my own home and income, being part of a family and social structure where single women are taken for granted – was much, much easier than for her,” says Tyabji. “The community in which she would spend the rest of her life was very different. (I told her) she should not take categorical decisions just yet, but stick out for the freedom of choice" She adds that after seeing her journey, it is she who today admires Kumari than the other way round.

Meanwhile, a few months later, at 14, Kumari found herself on a flight to the US. This was, in fact, only her second trip out of her village (she’d earlier gone to Kolkata to obtain her passport with the help of Srinivasan).

Laila Tyabji (Left) visited Kumari’s house, met her parents and played the role of a mentor

Although she was very excited, when it came to it, Kumari realised the enormity of what lay before her. She had butterflies in her stomach. “I had never seen an aircraft before this. I couldn’t speak a word of English and I was going very, very far from home all alone,” says Kumari, her eyes shining as she recalls the thrill of it all. The visit marked several firsts for her. Everything went smoothly and the few words of English she had learnt for the journey saw her through.

She spent a week in New York and says her happiest moment was when in front of a large audience, Tyabji announced that she had won the first prize in an art competition in Sri Lanka. All of 14, out of her village, in New York, alone – it all seemed like a dream.

After the trip, Kumari came back and continued her studies in her village. She also continued with her Sujini work with various NGOs, including Dastkar. She also started taking English lessons. This was also when she met Skye Morrison, a designer from Canada.Morrison didn’t speak any Hindi and Kumari barely spoke any English. But the two developed a special bond and Morrison took her for a week to the National Institute of Design (NID).

Exposure to the world outside had put new thoughts in Kumari’s head. While she was enjoying doing her craft for exhibitions, she felt she needed a formal degree in fashion to help take her talent and her love for her native art form to its logical conclusion. So, she applied for admission to the National Institute of Fashion Technology and asked her parents for permission to go and live in Delhi to pursue the course.

Again, Kumari’s demands were in some ways incomprehensible, even blasphemous. Forget travelling, she wanted to leave the parental home and move to Delhi, bag and baggage, to study. Moreover, her parents simply didn’t have the money.

That’s when a whole lot of people – many women, in fact – came forward and joined hands to help her. Tyabji agreed to be her local guardian in Delhi. Morrison agreed to finance part of her studies as did Adithi and some other NGOs. Her parents also put together whatever money they could spare. And when it wasn’t all enough (the course was for four years), Kumari herself sought projects from the Crafts Council of India to bridge the gap to pay her fees. All through, Kumari continued rigorous English lessons – essential for her to earn her degree. She also started dressing to fit in better – wearing jeans and T-shirts, which was unheard of in her village community.

After she had earned her degree (Tyabji and the others were present at her graduation), Kumari worked for around two years with export houses in Okhla in Delhi, earning a salary of Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 a month – a large sum for anyone from her village, boy or girl. “Supporting Kumari through her studies and helping in whatever way I could was an important milestone for her and for me,” says Morrison.

But Kumari soon realised she could either do her job or spend time on her craft and artwork. Moreover, she wanted to involve other women and girls from her village so that their work could reach a wider audience and they could earn an income. Once again she sought Tyabji’s advice and help and in 2010, she participated in Dastkar’s nature bazaar with her own stall. Soon, she was taking part in exhibitions regularly.

This helped her to slowly build a base of dedicated buyers, including those from America and Japan. Several of them would give her customised orders. The Dastkar melas, in particular, exposed her to a whole new world.

Kumari had quit her job by now. She started a small company under the name of Aunam. She also started participating in as many exhibitions as possible and making trips every month to her village. Today, at any given point, she has 40-45 girls from her village working on pieces mostly designed by her. She doesn’t earn a huge amount and Delhi is an expensive city, but she soldiers on and is happy with her freedom and choices.

Coming from a conservative community, Kumari broke many rules that are etched in stone for girls. Besides her spirit and resilience, her parent’s unflinching support played a critical factor in helping her achieve all that she did.

A progressive couple, Kumari’s father was a local do-gooder, always helping and guiding people with their problems – be it education, jobs, health and other matters – and trying to bring about social change in his village and community. Kumari’s elder sister was one of the first girls to go for higher education in the village.

But within her village and wider family, there were enough people who were totally opposed to her stepping out of the village – let alone heading off to America at 14.  “A lot of people almost threatened me saying, ‘We will see how you go,’” she recalls.  Often, people told her that she was “creating problems for her parents and giving them a very hard time”.

She – and her parents – had to constantly deal with barbs, snide comments and unsolicited advice. Her leaving the village and living in a “big, bad” city like Delhi was frowned upon by most. The conventional view was that such an independent streak in a girl would in all likelihood lead to some kind of disrepute in the future.

When it was time for her younger sisters to get married, the family faced a more serious hurdle on account of Kumari’s unmarried status. Kumari was the second child and when she did not marry, most families in the village were unwilling to get their sons married to her younger sisters.

This posed a serious problem. While her parents could turn a deaf ear to people’s barbs and unhappiness at Kumari’s unconventional ways, they couldn’t let her younger sisters suffer on account of her. Kumari too was worried, but eventually people came around. Today, both her younger sisters are married.

As with all things, attitudes and norms in the village have also changed over time. From the time when Kumari first stepped out of her village (close to two decades ago) to now, the village has seen many changes. Almost all girls study and finish school, more and more girls are beginning to leave the village for higher studies, people marry whenever they wish (it’s not dictated by what happens to your older siblings) and some girls marry boys out of choice and even out of their community. Kumari says even the preference for the male child is not as intense as it used to be.

Today, people speak of her with a sense of awe and are proud to claim association with her. Here’s a girl from their village who lives in Delhi, is an entrepreneur and earns as much as – if not more – many of the boys back home. For Kumari, life is still far from a smooth sail, but she has found the wind beneath her wings.

A rare privilege indeed for most Indian women.