A legendry folk artist, Gulabo not only got the flamboyant dance style “Kalbeliya“, conceptualized and choreographed by herself, identified across the globe but got her community, a nomadic one, a never imagined recognition. Battling all the odds that life thrust upon her she proceeded with courage and perseverance for the honour of the nation, her community and her family. The dance form, she introduced, is today one of the major features the state of Rajasthan is identified with on culture and tourism map.
Born in kalbeliya tribe in Ajmer as dhanvanti, her parents buried her on pressure from the community despite their unwillingness due to her being 4th girl child but she was lucky to be exhumed alive after almost six hours on the insistence of her mother’s sister. Her father started taking her along in a very tender age for the snake show on the roads, their staple profession and growing up with the snakes, she started dancing like the snakes. A style, which was quite a unique and unprecedented one.
Given her rather maniacal passion for the dance, she continued practicing surreptitiously in the isolated places despite the objections of her community.
Once she was taken to the holy shrine of khwaza moinuddin chishti, where the shrine blessed her with a rose flower and here she got the new name “GULABO”.
The turning point of her life came when she was dancing with her community women in a fair at Pushkar at the age of seven yrs in 1981. There she was noticed by some representatives of tourism department, who were quite enthralled by the gyrations and suppleness of her dance. There she was offered to dance before a group of foreigners, which she did after a rigorous convincing and won enormous appreciation. This public performance further enraged her community and this time the infuriated community panchayat slapped her family with social boycott. Unable to beat this resistance, she finally shifted to Jaipur with the help of her family and her promoters.
In 1985, she got an offer to join a culture crew for the USA, which again was opposed heavily, but overcoming this opposition, she finally left for the USA with her father passing away just a day ahead of her departure to the USA. But for the realization of the dreams of her father and her family and for the recognition of her community and art, she flew to the USA and remained in washington for two months performing continuously.
Impressed by the dance form, she had an offer to live there permanently and teach the dance but she refused. The intervention of the then prime minister, Rajiv gandhi, on whose wrist she tied a symbolic rakhi, could not budge her and he had to give in to her patriotic sentiments and interest in teaching the art in her own country.
Since then, she tied the holy thread on his wrist every raksha bandhan until he passes away. With this her relation with the Gandhi family became eternal.
This overseas performance in the US established her as an ambassador of the folk heritage of Rajasthan. President of the all India kalbeliya community, today she is treated as an institution, a hallmark of the state with a plethora of national and international awards. A visiting faculty at institutions in countries like Denmark (Copenhagen), France (Paris).
She has visited 153 countries. She wishes to set up a dance school in Pushkar, amidst the people of her own community. She has also taken up the course of educating the girls and boys of her community and working tirelessly for the image makeover of the community through the GULABI SAPERA SANGEET SANSTHAN, set up by her.
In 2011, GULABO featured in reality television show BIGG BOSS 5 as contestant No. 12. She spoke openly about the truth in 2016.
She got Padma Shri award from President of India.