Early Life and Education
Malati’s family originally belonged to Kamarakhanda in Bikrampur, Dhaka, (now in Bangladesh), but her family members had settled in Simultala, Bihar. Her maternal grandfather was Behari Lal Gupta, ICS, who became the Dewan of Baroda. Her first cousins on her mother's side of the family were Ranajit Gupta, ICS, a former Chief Secretary of West Bengal, and Indrajit Gupta, the famous parliamentarian and former Home Minister of India. Here eldest brother, P. K. Sen Gupta, a former Income Tax Commissioner, belonged to the Indian Revenue Service, and another brother, K. P. Sen, a former Postmaster General, was from the Indian Postal Service. Being the youngest child of her parents, she was a darling of all her brothers and sister. Her mother Snehalata was a writer in her own right, and had translated some works of Tagore, as is seen from her book Jugalanjali.
Malati Choudhury adopted to a completely different life style once she joined Rabindranath Tagore's Vishva-Bharati. In an article entitled ‘Reminiscences of Santiniketan’, her mother had written: “Malati was very happy and benefited much from her residence at Viswa-Bharati as a student. The personal influence of Gurudev and his teachings, his patriotism and idealism, have influenced and guided Malati throughout her life.”
She was fortunate enough to have been deeply influenced by both Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi. It was the former at whose feet she learnt and acquired some rare values and principles of education, development, art and culture, which had been the guiding principles in her life; and it was the latter who cast a magic spell on her and at whose instance she plunged herself into the freedom struggle.
Malati came to Santiniketan in 1921, when she was only sixteen years old, and lived there for a little more than six years. In those days Santiniketan was small and beautiful. There were nine girls of her age living in the hostel called Notun Bari (New House). They were Manjushree, Surekha (who later on became her sister-in-law), Eva, Satyabati, Latika, Saraju, Tapasi, Amita (mother of Professor Amartya Sen) and herself. They attended classes in the open under trees, learnt embroidery, handicrafts, music, dancing, painting and gardening. Leonard Knight Elmhirst, an Englishman, was in charge of the Agricultural Institute at Surul in Sriniketan, and he used to encourage them to learn gardening. Mr. Pearson, another Englishman, also taught them. It was he who inspired Malati to work for the tribals. Gurudev used to take classes on Balaka, when he read poems from his book ‘Balaka’, and explained the significance of the poems to them. Miss Stella Kramisch, who came to India on Gurudev’s invitation, taught them the principles of Indian Art and dancing. Malati and her friends spent very happy days at Santiniketan. As a young student there, she was quite famous for her outgoing personality, taking active part in Gurudev’s dance dramas and music sessions, as well as being the source of innocent mischiefs in the community.
At this time, a young man, Nabakrushna Choudhuri, from a well known family of Orissa, came to Santiniketan as a student. He came from Sabarmati Ashram at the instance of the Mahatma. He had as batchmates G. Ramachandran, B. Gopala Reddy, and Syed Mujtaba Ali. Malati got engaged to and later married Nabakrushna Choudhuri, who later became the Chief Minister of Orissa and the two left Santiniketan in 1927. This proved to be a turning point in her life.
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