Mahadevi Varma

Mahadevi Varma born on March 26, 1907, and passed away on September 11, 1987, was an Indian Hindi-language poet, essayist, sketch tale writer, and prominent figure in Hindi literature. She is regarded as one of the four major pillars of Hindi literature’s Chhayawadi era. She has also been referred to as the Modern Meera. Poet Nirala reportedly referred to her as “Saraswati in the huge temple of Hindi Literature”. Varma has seen India before and after its freedom. She was one of the poets who pushed for India’s larger society. Not only was her poetry vividly reflected in her writings, but so was her social upliftment activity and welfare development among women. These inspired not just readers but also critics, particularly through her novel Deepshikha. She established a delicate vocabulary in Khadi Boli’s Hindi poetry, which was previously thought to be only feasible in Braj bhasha. She took soothing words from Sanskrit and Bangla and modified them to Hindi for this. She knew a lot about music. Her songs’ charm rests in the tone, which reflects the euphemistic style of strong statements. She began her profession as a teacher. She oversaw the Prayag Mahila Vidyapeeth. She was married, yet she preferred an ascetic lifestyle. She was also an accomplished painter and a gifted translator. She has the distinction of having won every major award in Hindi literature. She was acclaimed as the most popular female litterateur of the last century.

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About Mahadevi Varma

Early Life

Mahadevi Varma was born on March 26th, 1907, in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, to a Hindu Brahmin family. Govind Prasad Varma, her father, was a lecturer at a college in Bhagalpur. Hem Rani Devi was her mother’s name. Her mother was a spiritual, compassionate, vegetarian woman who loved music. Her mother would recite the Ramayana, Gita, and Vinay Patrika for hours on end. Her father, on the other hand, was a scholar, music lover, agnostic, hunter, and cheerful person. Mahadevi Varma has close friends Sumitranandan Pant and Suryakant Tripathi Nirala. Varma is claimed to have tied Rakhis to Nirala for 40 years.

Education of Mahadevi Varma

Mahadevi Varma was initially accepted to a Convent school, but due to objections and an unwilling attitude, she transferred to Crosthwaite Girls College in Allahabad. Varma claims that she learned the power of unity while residing in the Crosthwaite hostel. Students from various religions lived together here. Varma began writing poems in secret, but her hidden gift was revealed when her roommate and senior Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (renowned in the school for penning poems) discovered her hoard of poems.

“While others used to play outside, I and Subhadra used to sit on a tree and let our creative thoughts flow together…She used to write in Khariboli, and soon I also started to write in Khariboli…this way, we used to write one or two poems a day.” –  Mahadevi Varma, Smrti Chitra (Memory Sketch) (English Translation)

Mahadevi Varma and her senior Subhadra Kumari Chauhan also used to send poems to periodicals like weekly magazines, and several of their poems were even published. Both aspiring poets attended poetry seminars, wherein they met prominent Hindi poets and read their poems in front of an audience. This collaboration lasted till Subhrada graduated from Crosthwaite. Varma wrote in her childhood memoir Mere Bachpan Ke Din (My Childhood Days) that she was extremely lucky to be born into a liberal household during a time when a girl child was regarded as a burden on the family. Her grandpa apparently wished for her to become a scholar, but he insisted that she marry at the age of nine, in accordance with tradition. Her mother was a holy pious person who spoke Sanskrit and Hindi fluently. Mahadevi attributes her interest in reading and poetry to her mother’s influence. Mahadevi refused to live with her husband Swarup Narain Varma after graduating in 1929 because they were incompatible. She was offended by his hunting and meat-eating habits. She was supposed to go live with her husband after finishing her schooling because she had been wedded as a child, but after she earned her BA, she flatly refused to live with him.

Her repentant father offered to convert alongside her if she wanted to divorce and remarry (since Hindus could not lawfully divorce at the time), but she rejected, stating that she preferred to remain single. She even tried unsuccessfully to persuade her spouse to remarry. Later, she was said to have contemplated becoming a Buddhist nun but ultimately decided against it, despite having studied Buddhist Pali and Prakrit scriptures as part of her master’s degree.

Career of Mahadevi Varma

Literary Career

Nihar was her first poetry collection. She penned Nihar in the year 1930, Rashmi in 1932, and Neerja in 1933. Sandhyageet, her collection of poems, was released in the year 1935. Yama, a compilation of four lyrical collections with accompanying artworks, was published in the year 1939. She also wrote 18 novels and short stories, the most notable of which are Mera Parivar (My Family), Smriti ki Rekhaye (Lines of Memory), Patha ke Sathi (Path’s Companions), Srinkhala ke Kariye (Series of Links), and Atit ke Chalachrit (Past Movies). She is also regarded as a feminist pioneer in India.

Women’s Advocacy

Mahadevi Varma’s professional life has always centred around writing, editing, and teaching. She made substantial contributions to the growth of Prayag Mahila Vidyapeeth in Allahabad. This level of responsibility was regarded as a game changer in the field of women’s education at the time. She had also served as its Principal. She took over the main women’s magazine Chand in 1923. Varma founded the Literary Parliament in Allahabad in 1955, with the assistance of Ilachandra Joshi, and took over as editor of its periodical. She established the first women’s poets’ conferences in India. Buddhism had a significant impact on Mahadevi. She took up public service under the inspiration of Mahatma Gandhi and served in Jhansi alongside the Indian freedom struggle. Mahadevi Varma built a home in Umagarh, Ramgarh, Uttarakhand, 25 kilometres away from Nainital, in the year 1937. Meera Temple was the name she gave it. She began working for the local people and their education and lived there till she lived there. She worked tirelessly for women’s education and financial self-sufficiency. This home is currently known as the Mahadevi Sahitya Museum.

She was able to instil the courage and resolve for women’s liberation and growth through a succession of endeavours. She became renowned as a woman liberationist due to her condemnation of social prejudices. She was also dubbed a social reformer because of her development efforts and public devotion to women and their education. Marriage is linked to slavery in Hindu Stree Ka Patnitva (The Wifehood of Hindu Women). Women are assigned to lives as spouses and mothers while not being associated with any political or financial authority, she writes. Her literary demeanour frequently overshadows her feminism. She addressed topics and ideas of female sexuality in poems like Cha, while her short stories like Bibia discuss the problem of women’s physical and emotional abuse. She lived the majority of her life in Uttar Pradesh’s Allahabad (Prayagraj). On September 11th, 1987, she passed away in Allahabad.

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Works of Mahadevi Varma

Poems by Mahadevi Varma

Mahadevi Varma was both a poet and a distinguished prose writer. Here are some of her masterpieces.

Selected songs from the aforementioned compositions have been assembled in a number of additional poetic collections by Mahadevi Varma that have also been published.

Proses by Mahadevi Varma

The following are some of the best prose works by Varma:

Other Compositions of Mahadevi Varma

There are two collections of Mahadevi Varma’s poems for kids:

• Thakurji Bhole Hai
• Aaj Kharidenge hum Jwala

Honours and Awards

Literary Contributions of Mahadevi Varma

When Mahadevi Varma first appeared in literature, Khadi Boli was still taking on its final form. She introduced Hindi poetry to Braj bhasha tenderness. She left us a collection of songs that sincerely embraced Indian philosophy. She made significant contributions in the three domains of language, literature, and philosophy in this fashion, and the results later had an impact on an entire generation. She crafted her songs with a distinctive rhythm and simplicity in the language and composition, as well as a natural use of symbols and pictures that paint a picture in the reader’s head. She has made a significant contribution to the growth of Chhayavadi poetry.

While Suryakant Tripathi Nirala personified the liberation in the Chhayavadi poetry, Sumitranandan Pant introduced the art of delicacy, and Jaishankar Prasad gave it naturalisation, Varma gave the Chhayavadi poetry life. Her poetry is characterised by emotionalism and intensity of feeling more than anything else. Varma is one of the best Chhayavadi poets because of this vivid and tactile representation of the subtlest of subtle sentiments of the heart. She is respected for her Hindi-language speeches. She spoke with hard truth and compassion for the average person. She attended the closing ceremony as the main guest at the third World Hindi Conference in Delhi in 1983.

In addition to her original works, she also translated well, producing pieces like ‘Sappaparna’ (1980). She has highlighted 39 significant works of Hindi poetry in her work using her cultural awareness by identifying the Vedas, Ramayana, Theragatha, and the works of Ashwaghosh, Kalidas, Bhavabhuti, and Jayadeva. She conducted a thorough investigation into this priceless collection of Indian knowledge and literature at the beginning of the 61 page long “Apna Baat”, which enhances Hindi’s entire thinking and great writing, not only feminine writing.

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