ASSAM : Runumi Saikia was still a bubbly schoolgirl when life dealt a blow to her. The deaths of her parents, within two years of each other, thrust the responsibility of her two sisters and a brother onto her shoulders.
Born in Assam’s Sivasagar district, Runumi was around 18 when she began taking private tuition. It was at this age that she also started making and selling pickles and pithas—traditional delicacies made mainly from rice flour, coconut, sesame and jaggery. What began as a means to keep her family afloat would eventually become a lifelong journey of sacrifice and entrepreneurship.
Today, she sells her products under the brand name Tripti. But it took her years of struggle to make it this far.
Runumi was at her wit’s end after losing her father, who ran a modest shop from rented premises. Before she could come to terms with his death, tragedy struck again with the loss of her mother. Suddenly, she was worrying not only about her own education and that of her siblings, but also about how the family would survive. Her brother, then around 13, briefly tried to run the family shop before eventually giving up the business.
With no source of income left, Runumi began knocking on doors in her neighbourhood, asking families if their children needed private tuition. Some hired her. At the same time, she taught herself to make pickles and pithas, selling them to villagers. The money helped keep the household going. But the demands of survival left little time for school or studies. Eventually, she dropped out after Class XII, choosing her family’s future over her own education.
She continued working to support her siblings and eventually got her two sisters married. Both are now settled well in life. When Runumi herself got married, she took her brother to live with her. In 2013, he left for Bengaluru in search of a job. He has not been traced since. Marriage did not bring an end to Runumi’s struggles either. She says her in-laws never accepted her because she came from a poor family. Her difficulties deepened when, years after her son’s birth, she realised that he was a special child. But he has never been a burden. Now 23, he is her only child. A turning point came in 2015, when Runumi decided to turn her skills into a business.
“I had been associated with a national political party for a few years and went on to become a ward member, but realised at one point of time that politics is not my field. I thought I should instead do something productive on my own. My husband, who works for a contractor, had a meagre income and I wanted to support him. This spurred me to start my own business,” Runumi says.
Pickles and pithas remained her natural choice, and encouragement from neighbours gave her the confidence to keep going. She began supplying her products to shops in the local market. For a few years, she worked on building a customer base and a name for herself. Then came a crucial boost: she bought machines with a loan availed under the Pradhan Mantri Formalisation of Micro Food Processing Enterprises Scheme.
“Initially, I made very little profit, as I sold my products to local shops and wholesalers. But the good part was that I was not required to look for customers. Those were the formative years, and I wanted to build my name,” she says. As the business began to stabilise, Runumi did something that came naturally to someone who had known hardship firsthand: she created opportunities for others. She employed three women from marginalised families, having experienced the difficulties faced by people with limited means herself. Their addition to the team also helped her raise production.