Riche Ded was born in Srinagar in 1880. She lived an disciplined life giving little importance to material things. The name Riche Ded means "Noble Lady" and Riche Ded lived as if this name was true. Riche Ded’s spirituality and poetry were compared to those of Lal Ded, a mystic from the century. Riche Ded had her own voice and her own special pain. While Lal Ded’s poems were passed down orally. Riche Ded’s poems stayed hidden for years. People saw Riche Ded as a devout woman. Many believed Riche Ded had healing powers. Yet what made Riche Ded special was her kindness. Riche Ded helped people of all religions and backgrounds. She did not make and see any difference. Riche Ded showed a way of peace and tolerance. Riche Ded never used anger or fights. Riche Ded’s life was about service and harmony.
Riche Ded’s life had moments. Her husband, Janardhan Kaul "Sagar" was a learned man. He spoke Urdu, Persian, Arabic, English, Hindi and Sanskrit. He was a writer and poet. In 1918 Janardhan died. Riche Ded was thirty‑eight. Suddenly Riche Ded had to take care of her home and her sick son. Without Janardhan’s support Riche Ded had to face life. She started spinning to earn money. Even though life was difficult Riche Ded kept writing poetry. The spinning wheel became part of Riche Ded’s rhythm. As Riche Ded spun Riche Ded also wrote verses in Kashmiri. The work of earning bread mixed with Riche Ded’s thoughts and spiritual journey. Here fate did something Danawati, Riche Ded’s daughter‑in‑law quietly wrote down the verses Riche Ded sang while spinning. She used Devanagari script. Kept the pages safe. No big organization or scholar looked at them. The pages stayed in a cupboard quietly holding Riche Ded’s poems that were not known to many.
For than thirty years those handwritten pages stayed hidden. Their survival feels almost miraculous. The pages faced dangers to paper: insects, decay, ants. Yet Danawati’s care turned what could have been lost into a collection. It took Danawati years before the hidden poems were opened. How Danawati first saw the value of the pages is unclear. Her patience saved Riche Ded’s whole poetic world. The turning point came in 1966. Danawati was very sick that year. Riche Ded died at eighty‑six. The fragile pages had to be taken out. When the cupboard opened Riche Ded’s poems appeared. Hundreds of verses written over decades were found. With help from poet and family friend Prithvi Nath Kaul "Sayil" 400 to 450 verses were put together. Riche Ded’s story did not end there. Riche Ded’s son, Hari Krishan "Fani" published the poems in book form in 1980. 1980 Was the year of Riche Ded’s birth. Now poems that had been with the spinning wheel finally had a book.
The way Riche Ded’s poems survived is symbolic. They were not kept in a library or by an institution. They survived in secrecy thanks to family care. Were saved by handwritten pages in a cupboard. This shows that many voices can vanish not because they are not great. Because they cannot reach the usual ways of recognition. Riche Ded’s situation was especially sad because her poems came from hardship not from comfort. Riche Ded did not write from a place. She wrote while dealing with widowhood money worries, home duties and difficult fate. The spinning wheel was both Riche Ded’s job and a quiet friend of Riche Ded’s thoughts. Riche Ded’s verses are real because they came from a life that felt pain, faith, endurance and kindness.
Riche Ded’s story also shows how strong Kashmir’s oral and written traditions are. Kashmir has poets, mystics and thinkers who spoke their ideas before writing them. In that culture Danawati’s keeping of Riche Ded’s verses is very important. Danawati became, unknowingly the holder of a memory that could have disappeared. Riche Ded should be remembered not as another name among many Kashmiri poets but as a symbol of strong mind and spirit. Riche Ded’s life shows that hard times can go with creativity and that quietness can hide a lot of thought. The fact that Riche Ded’s poems were hidden for decades makes their discovery more touching. For thirty long years Riche Ded’s spinning wheel sang the story of a Kashmiri poetess. Each turn of the wheel carried verses from pain, thought and faith. Each handwritten line kept a part of Riche Ded’s mind that history almost missed. What seemed to be a cupboard became a hidden archive of Kashmiri literary memory.
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