inspiring women

inspiring women

"Send me to school"

• R. Lilavati, child widow

• became an educationalist

• India’s education canvas too bears masterly strokes from path-breaking women who fought for women’s education and cultural uplift

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• Savitribai Phule - first woman schoolteacher in mid-1800s

• Durgabai Deshmukh - established vocational training schools for women

• Begum Zafar Ali - first woman matriculate of Kashmir

• R. Lilavati. A child widow, she refused remarriage and fought for an education, becoming an educationist for 35 years during the British Raj,

• created an army of Indian educators

• finally retired as the Deputy Director of School Education, Tamil Nadu, in 1974.

• born in Madras in 1919,In 1930, this timid 11-year-old was married before knowing what marriage meant

• Three months later, before she formally lived with her husband, he died

• "Send me to school"

• Those four words changed the arc of multiple generations of families

Change-maker

• inspiration from R.S. Subbulakshmi, a child widow who founded Sarada Vidyalaya in the 1920s to educate young widows

• After schooling in Madurai, she had her vision to be a change-maker within and beyond the classroom underpinned by her teachers at Queen Mary’s College from 1935 to 1939, and Lady Willingdon Training College in 1940 in Chennai

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• headmistress Leela leading Government Girls’ High Schools in Vellore and Chidambaram from 1944 to 1959,

• dressed in crisp white saris and hair tied in a firm bun, while she transformed a dilapidated wedding hall into a school fit for young girls.

• Going door-to-door, she would debate with parents to let their children become a graduate before becoming a wife

• One of her students reminisces, “India had just gained Independence. Schools had a tall order to shape a new generation of Indians, and teachers were considered role models

• Leela taught us self-empowerment and leadership, much before it was described in management books. Several of us became educators, inspired by her.”

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• Positive thinking and a feisty spirit accompanied Leela as a single working woman from the 1940s to 1970s.

• She proudly became the only woman in Tamil Nadu selected for the Madras English Literature Teaching (MELT) Campaign in the 1950s

• In 1965, the British Council gave her a rare honour in selecting her to visit England and Wales for a Language Laboratory programme.

• On her 100th birthday last year, Leela quipped, “Sachin Tendulkar often gets dismissed at 99, but I made a 100!”

• Leela passed away in Bengaluru in August at 101.

• Her vision, fearless spirit, and love for literature live as her legacy.

• What sweet irony then that Leela’s birthday is on March 8, International Women’s Day.