Aditi Dubey, Founder of Ruas personally seconds No Sir No Madam drive in India. Ruas works closely with traditional women artisans to recognize them as artists with their unique craft skills and help preserve their historic craft forms.
Aditi is a Master’s Degree holder in Communication and Journalism. She has worked for various organizations, including Star India group as a Creative Writer and Editorial Associate. However, growing up, she traveled a lot and got the chance to see different handicrafts made by artisans. Having grown an affinity towards these crafts and with a vision to empower women, she institutionalized Ruas.
She mentions —I have been fortunate enough to never have worked in a firm that strictly follows salutation edict. Being in the Media industry, the culture of the organizations I worked with has mostly been casual. Moreover, it also creates a genial environment at the workplace which makes communication easier.
For my work, I have to visit villages in order to meet artisans. Subsequently, I have to converse with women, who at first might think that I am a stranger and question my presence in their village. However, after communicating with them as equal, they open up and give you the same respect.
“Furthermore, because of maintaining a salutation ridden tradition, I have been able to form strong bonds with the artists I work with,” adds Aditi.
Aditi surmises that a simple act of convening with the security guard or other such blue-collar workers as equal can instill mutual respect. Such small acts would make contemplate about their behavior towards laborers and might stop them from treating the workers as objects.
She cites an example of her visit to a rural village in India with regards to her work. Aditi voices, “On entering the village, I could notice some ladies continuously repeating the word ‘Brahmin’. As they were aware of my name and of me being a Brahmin. Moreover, they were joyful of the fact that a Brahmin person had visited their village for the first time.
However, I found it to be absurd that people in villages still have to face indifferences based on their caste. Thus, we ought to remove such social taboos and instill parity within society, in order to progress as a nation.”
No Sir No Madam too aims at spreading equality and eradicating the social stigmas that are associated with people from backward section of the society.
Aditi recommends that people in power ought to take the onus and set examples for other people. People look up to them and might get inspired to follow No Sir No Madam culture. This would definitely have a bigger impact along with educating the public regarding first-name habit.
Aditi winds up by quoting, “treat people the way you want to be treated. If people keep this thought in mind, they would not be rude to others. This would also help in bringing a gradual change in their behavior towards other as well.”
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