Mahadevi Varma - Early Life

Early Life

In her childhood biography Mere Bachpan Ke Din(My Childhood Days), Mahadevi Verma has written that at a time when a girl child was considered a burden upon the family, she was very fortunate to be born into a liberal family. Her grandfather had the ambition of making her a scholar; her mother was fluent in Sanskrit and Hindi, and very religious. Mahadevi credits her mother for inspiring her to write poems, and to take an interest in literature.

Mahadevi was originally admitted to a Convent school, but upon protests and an unwilling attitude, she took admission in Crosthwaite Girls College in Allahabad. According to Mahadevi, she learnt the strength of unity in the hostel at Crosthwaite, where students of different religions lived together and the mess was also according to the religious requirement. Mahadevi started to write poems secretly; but upon discovery of her hidden stash of poems by her room-mate and senior Subhadra Kumari Chauhan (known in the school for writing poems), her hidden talent was exposed. Mahadevi and Subhrada now started to write poems together in their free time.

While others used to play outside, me and Subhrada 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, Mere Bachpan Ke Din

She and Subhrada also used to send poems to publications such as weekly magazines, and managed to get some of their poems published. Both poets also attended poetry seminars, where they met eminent Hindi poets, and read out their poems to the audience. This partnership continued till Subhrada graduated from Crosthwaite.