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 Mahadevi
Varma
- Forging a Feminist Path
 Every year as the festival of Holi approaches, one cannot but think of
Mahadevi Varma who was born on that festive day in 1907. One of the
luminaries of Hindi literature, Varma lived for eight decades until
September 11, 1987, using that time to steadily push her own frontiers and
those of women around her into untrodden private and public spaces.
As the first-born in a comfortable middle class family, Varma's birth was
welcomed both by her parents and relatives. She owed her eclectic
intellect to her father, a professor of English, but equally to her
mother, whose recitations of the religious compositions of Bhakti saints,
especially Mira, left a lasting imprint on Varma's young mind.
Interestingly, she was destined to win recognition in the Hindi literary
world as an 'adhunik' (modern) Mira. Observers have also tried to seek
similarity in the personal lives of both women who renounced their spousal
role in pursuit of their own identity.
Just nine years old when she was married, Varma was nevertheless permitted
to pursue her studies first at home and later at school and college. A
competent student, she went on to finish her Masters degree in 1932.
When she grew older, rather than making marriage her career, Varma decided
to take up a profession. An early experience that was never addressed
directly by her -- or satisfactorily explained by literary essayists --
left her disenchanted with marriage. That fact alone may have caused what
can well be perceived as the leap from female to feminist. This fashioned
not only the course of Varma's subsequent life, but also her creative
talent as well as her intellectual and practical activism on behalf of
women.
Like some other educated women of her time, Varma turned to writing,
public service and teaching as a way to exercise her intellect and
expressing herself. Her decision to write prose and poetry and attend 'Kavi
Sammelans' (poetry festivals) was daring enough for those times.
Luckily, she had a soul sister in the equally gifted Subhadra Kumari
Chauhan. Together, they became the leading edge of a small sorority of
female poet-writers poised to enter the hall of literary fame in the Hindi
language.
Although women writers were attaining recognition in other regional
languages, Varma's uniqueness lay in her commanding parity with men and
being widely recognized, along with Nirala, Pant and Prasad, as one of the
four founder-leaders of a new romantic school of Hindi poetry termed
'Chhayavad'.
Her creative energy led Varma to author over five volumes of poetry and
several volumes of memoirs, essays and literary criticism. Her poetry and
prose quickly earned her recognition as one of India's most lyrical and
intellectually prolific writers.
But her significance when tackling women's issues and as an activist
helping women actually overcome their vulnerability rather than only
theorizing about them is what really makes Varma different. Sensing the
burden on Indian women serving as slaves to men enslaved by colonial
power, she wrote incisive essays debating the role and situation of women.
The best of these appeared in 'Chand', a women's magazine of that
time and was compiled as a book in 1942 - 'Shrnkhla Ki Kadiyaan'
(Chains of Subjugation).
To get women to smash the chains of subjugation, Varma harnessed both her
intellect and talent to work for their emancipation. As Dean of a women's
college in Allahabad, Varma spent nearly three decades at that
institution, shaping it to best meet the ill-served needs and priorities
of its female students.
While she catered to the strata of young middle class women through the
institution she headed, she also began to use the might of her pen to
bring to the surface the unsung heroism in the day-to-day life of
socio-economically submerged women. These "women warriors" (to borrow a
term from Maxine Kingston's celebrated novel) became permanently etched in
some of her outstanding prose. The best known of this feminist prose was 'Ateet
Ke Chalchitra', a collection of short stories centered around the
experience mainly of women who touched Varma's life deeply.
While staying away from active politics, Varma had little difficulty in
imbibing the asceticism and altruism of the Gandhian way of life. Her
respect for life in any form also led her to spend a lot of her time in
caring for injured birds, reptiles and animals. So much so, that her home
became a menagerie. Later she brought to life "these primary companions"
in her colorful book of recollections 'Mera Parivaar' (my family).
The compassion that linked Varma to animal and human life also connected
her to nature in which she saw infinite mystery, expanse, depth, eternity
and an indomitable spirit. She equated the perennial link between the
human heart and nature to that between an object and its shadow.
Seeking a common denominator in human experience, Varma found it
pre-eminently in sorrow, which she perceived as "poetry of life with the
ability to bond the whole world in a single thread". The human being
"wishes to enjoy pleasure in isolation but to share pain with everyone,"
she observed. "Only when people adopt compassion as their religion will
life be joyous," she concluded. Sadly, Varma's compulsive attraction to
sorrow is characterized by some as a product of a failed marriage or even
of suppressed sexuality. This view is limited because it is male-centric
and applies the measure of male presence to a female's fulfillment.
It is hard for a male-conditioned literary and social world to acknowledge
that the excessive longing "for that unknown someone" expressed by Varma
in her writings may be anything but carnal or male-generated.
� Neera Kuckreja Sohoni
March 21, 2002
The author is the translator
of Mahadevi Varma's 'Ateet Ke Chalchitra' (1994) and 'Shrnkhla
Ki Kadiyaan' (forthcoming).
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