Mahadevi Varma, a renowned Hindi poetess, women’s rights activist and educationist, was honoured by Google with a doodle on Friday, 27 April.
Varma is a prominent figure of the Chhayavaad period, a literary movement of romanticism in modern Hindi poetry from 1922 to 1938.
On 27 April 1982, she received the prestigious Jnanpith Award for excellence in poetry in Indian languages, for her collection of poems –Yama.
The doodle, designed by artist Sonali Zohra, has an illustration of Varma sitting under a tree, writing poetry. The right side shows her writing in the Devanagari script.
Varma was born on 26 March 1907 in Farukhabad, Uttar Pradesh. She was married at the age of nine but stayed back at her parental home post marriage. She finished her schooling from Crossthwaite Girls’ School in Allahabad, following which she pursued a BA degree in 1929 and completed her Masters in Sanskrit in 1933, both from Allahabad University.
In school, Varma’s friend and roommate, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (a well-known poet herself), discovered her poetry and urged her to publish her work. Both Varma and Chauhan grew as writers owing to the increased acceptance of modern Hindi writing in literary circles in the 1920s.
Varma’s poetry and prose were largely centred around experiences of women. Her collection of short stories, Sketches From My Past, portrays the women she met while she was the principal at Prayag Mahila Vidyapeeth, Allahabad. Her poetry was published in various books and magazines. Through her writing, she often urged women to have greater confidence in their literary contributions. Her notable works include Neeklanth, Gaura, and Gillu, among others.
Owing to her contribution to Indian poetry, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1956, the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 1979, and the Padma Vibhushan posthumously in 1988.
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