Sarojini Naidu- Life, Work and Achievements

Sarojini Naidu- Life, Work and Achievements

1. SAROJANI NAIDU LIFE , WORK AND ACHIEVEMENTS By Rahila Khan, GGPC QUETTA

2. CONTENTS Personal Life 01 Education 02 Marriage 03 Political Career 04 Writing Career 05 Awards 06 Work 07 Themes of Work 08

3. Personal life Sarojini Naidu was born on February 13, 1879, in Hyderabad. Her Father Aghorenath Chattopadhyay, was a Bengali Brahmin, and Principal of the Nizam's College in Hyderabad. Her mother, Barada Sundari Devi Chattopadhyay, was a Bengali poet. She was the eldest of the eight siblings. Her brother Virendranath Chattopadhyay was a revolutionary, and another brother Harindranath was a poet, a dramatist, and an actor. Their family was well-regarded in Hyderabad, not only for leading the Nizam College of Hyderabad but also as Hyderabad's most famous artists at that time.

4. Education Sarojini Naidu, passed her matriculation examination from the University of Madras . L ater, took a four-year break from her studies. In 1895, the Nizam's Charitable Trust gave her the chance to study in England, first at King's College, London and later at Girton College, Cambridge .

5. Marriage Sarojini met Paidipati G. Naidu-a physician, at the age of 19, after finishing her studies, she married him. Sarojini was from Bengal, while Paidipati Naidu was from Andhra Pradesh, this was an inter-regional marriage of East and South India . The couple had 5 children. Their daughter Paidipati Padmaja also joined the independence movement.She was appointed the Governor of the State of Uttar Pradesh soon after Indian independence .

6. Political Career Naidu joined the Indian independence movement in 1905. She soon met other such leaders as Gopal Krishna Gokhale , Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi. Between 1915 and 1918, Naidu travelled to different regions in India delivering lectures on social welfare, emancipation of women and nationalism. She also helped to establish the Women's Indian Association (WIA) in 1917 .[ Later in 1917, Naidu also accompanied her colleague Annie Besant, who was the president of Home Rule League and Women's Indian Association, to present the advocate universal suffrage in front of the Joint Select Committee in London, United Kingdom . Naidu again went to London in 1919 as a part of the All India Home Rule League as a part of her continued efforts to advocate for freedom from the British rule. Upon return to India in 1920, she joined Gandhi's Satyagraha Movement . Naidu presided over the 1925 Annual Session of the Indian National Congress at Cawnpore (now Kanpur). She was the first Indian woman and second woman overall (after Annie Besant) to do so . Naidu said in her address, "In the battle for liberty, fear is one unforgivable treachery and despair, the one unforgivable sin ".

7. Political Career (Continued…) Naidu also presided over East African Indian Congress' 1929 session in South Africa . Naidu was arrested, along with other Congress leaders including Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Madan Mohan Malaviya for participating in 1930 Salt March. In 1931, Naidu and other leaders of the Congress party participated in the Second Round Table Conference headed by Viceroy Lord Irwin in the wake of the Gandhi-Irwin pact . Naidu was one of the major figures to have led the Civil Disobedience Movement and Quit India Movement led by Gandhi. She faced repeated arrests by the British authorities during the time and even spent over 21 months in jail . F ollowing India's independence from the British rule in 1947, Naidu was appointed as the governor of the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh), making her India's first woman governor. She remained in office until her death in March 1949 .

8. Writing career Naidu began writing at the age of 12. Her play, Maher Muneer , written in Persian, impressed the Nizam of Kingdom of Hyderabad . In 1905, her first collection of poems, named The Golden Threshold was published . Her poems were admired by prominent Indian politicians like Gopal Krishna Gokhale . Naidu poem " In the Bazaars of Hyderabad " was published as in 1912. I t was well received by critics, who variously noted Naidu's visceral use of rich sensory images in her writing . The Feather of The Dawn which contained poems written in 1927 by Naidu was edited and published afterward in 1961 by her daughter Padmaja Naidu .

9. Kaisar - i -Hind Medal In 1908, Naidu was awarded Medal by King Edward VII for her work during the plague in India . "Nightingale of India " For her work in the field of poetry writing, Naidu was given the title of "Nightingale of India ". Google Doodle In 2014, Google India observed Naidu's 135th birth anniversary with a Google Doodle . 150 Leading Women In 2018, Naidu was listed among "150 Leading Women" list by the University of London Awards " Asteroid  5647 Sarojininaidu In 1990, an a steroid discovered by Eleanor Helin at Palomar Observatory was named in her memory

10. 1905 1912 1917 1919 1943 The Golden Threshold The Bird of Time The Broken Wing Muhammad Jinnah : An Ambassador of Unity The Sceptered Flute WORK 1905: The Golden Threshold, published in the United Kingdom[18] (text available online)
1912: The Bird of Time: Songs of Life, Death & the Spring, published in London[19]
1917: The Broken Wing: Songs of Love, Death and the Spring, including "The Gift of India" (first read in public in 1915)[19][20]
1919: Muhammad Jinnah: An Ambassador of Unity[21]
1943: The Sceptred Flute: Songs of India, Allahabad: Kitabistan , posthumously published[19]
1961: The Feather of the Dawn, posthumously published, edited by her daughter, Padmaja Naidu[22]
1971:The Indian Weavers[23] 19 The Feather of the Dawn 05 The Indian Weavers 1912 1961 1971

11. Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949) was a versatile woman personality of twentieth-century India. She was a highly cultured woman, a freedom fighter, a theosophist and a poetess. The themes and imageries of her poetry are primarily Indian. Three loves- love to man, love to her motherland and love to Nature are the main themes of her poetry. Her language is lyrical, alliterative and full of individual similes. Moreover, her poems sometimes bend to mysticism. Indian myths and legends also meet in her poems with a romantic outlook . Sarojini Naidu as a romantic poetess is a combination of Wordsworth, Blake, Keats and Shelley with something of them in her though not in full. Themes of her work

12. Love is the primary theme of her poems. Her love poems are passionate to the point of eroticism. The poetess is very deep in love with her mate. In the poem ‘If You Call Me’ she says that she is willing to have a call from her mate. She is very eager to meet and join her mate defying all the obstacles. She writes: ‘ If you call me, I will come

Swifter than desire,

Swifter than the lightning’s feet

Shod with plumes of fire.

Life’s dark tides may roll between,

Or Death’s deep chasms divide-

If you call me I will come

Fearless what betide.” . LOVE LOVE

13. The bulk of her poems deal with the theme of Nature. Her Nature is full of trees, woods, birds, peace, freedom and beauty. She desires to take shelter in Nature being tired and wearied of man-made society and its artificiality. In the poem poem ‘Summer Woods’ she says: ” O I am tired of painted roofs and soft and silken floors, I am tired of strife and song and festivals and fame

And long to fly where cassia woods are breaking into flame.”

In the same poem she says again:

”You and I together Love in the deep blossoming woods

Engirt with love-void silence and gleaming solitudes.

Companions of the lustrous dawn, gay comrades of the night. Like Krishna and like Radhika, encompassed with delight.” NATURE

14. Another theme of her poetry is her love to the motherland. The poetess is very aware of India’s slavery under the British and she is very passionate and emotional to free India from the yoke of the English. Sarojini Naidu believes that to get freedom, the people irrespective of caste and creed must come out. In the poem entitled ‘Awake’ she says: Waken , O mother, thy children implore thee,

Who kneel in thy presence to serve and adore thee!

The night is a flush with a dream of the morrow,

Why still dost thou sleep in thy bondage of sorrow ?’ LOVE FOR MOTHERLAND

15. Some of her poems are bent to mysticism though not apparently. Her heart and soul are so much sensitive that she feels the human soul be akin to the soul of Nature. In the poem Caprice she says: ” You held a wildflower in your finger tips,

Idly you pressed it to indifferent lips,

Idly you tore its crimson leaves apart…

Alas! It was my heart.” Like a true mystic, she makes communication of her soul with the Divine Soul. In the poem ‘The Soul’s Prayer’ she shows to have a communication with God and dramatically her soul speaks to and converses with the Divine Soul.

” I bending from my sevenfold height

Will teach thee of My quickening grace

Life is a prism of My light

And Death is the shadow of my face.’‘ MYSTICISM

16. T he poetess takes some themes and allusion from Indian myths and portrays them with a romantic outlook. ‘Songs of Radha Kanhaya ’ and ‘Songs of Radha the Quest’ are some poems dealing with mythical themes. In ‘Songs of Radha Kanhaya ‘she speaks of Lord Krishna’s childish frolic. It is a poem dealing with the theme of love of Radha to Krishna. INDIAN MYTHS

17. The linguistic style of Sarojini Naidu is lyrical, alliterative and full of similes. She often employs two-lined rhyme schemes (couplet) and sometimes uses the rhyme scheme as- ababcc of six lines. Her use of alliteration is praiseworthy. She uses it often with skill as-” soft and silken ”, “festivals and fame ”, “ praise and prayers” etc. She is very artful in the use of similes with the touch of novelty, such as- ( i ) Seven queens shone round her ivory bed, Like seven soft gems on a silken thread. (ii)Her glides and fillets gleam, Like charming fires on sunset seas.

(iii) A young queen eyed like the morning star. Her imageries are also exquisite, though not often, but sometimes. For example, we can quote the following lines from the poem entitled ‘The Purdah Nashin ’, as- ” From thieving light of eyes impure,

From coveting sun or wind’s caress

Her days are guarded and secure

Behind her cavern lattices:

Like jewels in a turbaned crest,

Like secrets in a lover’s breast.” LINGUISTIC STYLE

18. SAROJANI NAIDU FAMOUS QUOTES

19. REFERENCES Anand , Renu ; Alurkar , Sudha (1964). Techniques of counseling guidance, counseling and student personnel in education McGraw-Hill series in education . Tata McGraw-Hill Education. pp. 66–70. Augestine , Seline (17 June 2017). " Nightingale of India ". The Hindu. " Google Doodle celebrates Sarojini Naidu's 135th Birthday ". news.biharprabha.com. " Leading Women 1868–2018 ", University of London. Lilyma Ahmed. "Naidu, Sarojini ". Banglapedia : National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh. Lyer , N Sharada (1964). Musings on Indian Writing in English: Poetry. Sarup & Sons. p. 150. Sarkar , Amar Nath ; Prasad, Bithika , eds. (2008). Critical response to Indian poetry in English . New Delhi: Sarup & Sons. Sharma , Kaushal Kishore (1 January 2003). " Sarojini Naidu: A Preface to Her Poetry ". Feminism, Censorship and Other Essays. Sarup & Sons. pp. 56–57

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