Sanju (age 27), Rubia (age 28), Maina (age 26) and Jaiambe (age 26) are our four new tracing artisans at the Rangsutra Ridmalsar centre in Bikaner. Early March this year, the four friends walked into the centre one day with the request for training so that they could secure work at Rangsutra. “Hum bhi kaam sikhna chahte hain, hum bhi aapke saath kaam karna chahte hai aur aapke saath judna chahte hai’. ‘We too want to learn. We want to work with you’. Having seen hundreds of women artisans go in and out of the Rangsutra gates over the years, the local women knew about the Rangsutra centre which works closely with women artisans - training them, upgrading their skills, and providing them with regular work and at the same time providing a safe working environment in their centre.

 Sanju, Rubia, Maina and Jaiambe are enthusiastic,  passionate and professional about their work. I met them at a recent visit to the Ridmalsar centre. They   seemed joyful, working   together, helping each   other and just loving the   office  experience. Together they were pouring over the   fabric provided to them for   tracing, exploring ways to   do the job perfectly. When I asked them how they were so confident, they said, ‘we were trained by Rangsutra in April 2022. We were trained to adjust the tracing sheets according to the garment size, understand the design of the motifs, motif placements on the garments and learn what tracing quality is all about. We were also trained in free hand motif drawing with a pen’.