Lalita Vakil

“I was the first woman who introduced silk in creating larger masterpieces of Chamba Rumal in place of small rectangular handkerchiefs. I kept the basic embroidery intact but successfully created a few live images. These have been my most admired works, which I took to several handicraft exhibitions held abroad and within the country.“
-Lalita Vakil

Lalita Vakil is an Indian embroidery artist known for her contributions to the preservation and promotion of Chamba Rumal. Vakil was awarded Padma Shri in 2022 by the Government
of India for her contributions to the field of arts. She was also awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2018. While working on small pieces of square cloth in the art and craft class at school where she first learned the embroidery technique of Chamba rumal, Lalita Vakil was then only a teenager. Lalita recalls how her father-in-law, a native of Chamba, recognized her latent and intricate designs on chamba rumal and told her to train local girls and women, who could also make their livelihoods from embroidery. This also helped her in the drive to revive the dying art. Lalita has trained hundreds of women, a few of them in their third generation.