Woman writes new story with tulsi beads
Till just about eight years ago, Ombati Devi was unsure how her life was shaping up. Married at the age of 18 to Veera Jangid, a daily wage labourer, Ombati, now 48, wanted a good life for her two children and a house for her family, something that her husband Veera Jangid had not been able to provide.
It was a visit to her relative’s village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district about eight years ago that changed her life. She saw how her relative would create beads out of Tulsi (cimum tenuiflorum or holy basil) stem, string them together as a rosary and sell them for a neat profit.
Her relative took her to an NGO, which granted Ombati a loan of ₹25,000 to start manufacturing ‘Tulsi mala’. Since then she has never looked back.
“I work for about 14 hours a day preparing 20-25 Tulsi rosaries. A pack of 20 such rosaries sell for ₹1,500 to ₹2,000. I buy Tulsi wood from Jaint village in Mathura at ₹40 per kilogram,” says Ombati.
Around nine months ago, she was trained by the Rural Technology Action Group of IIT Delhi in making beads with the help of a machine. The machine has helped increase the productivity and now the rosaries manufactured by Ombati are sold in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Orrisa, Tamil Nadu, and Haryana.
Such has been the success of her trade that Ombati, a resident of village Belara under Sub-division Nadbai in Bharatpur, got a house constructed for her family. She also owns two shops now. Her sons Sonu and Monu help with her work.
She now aims to help make every woman self dependant. Ombati has already trained nearly 800 women while another 3,500 women are now making Tulsi rosaries inspired by her.