Early Life and Education
Jayakar was born in 1915 at Etawah, in the state of United Provinces (Uttar Pradesh). Her father was a liberal intellectual and senior officer in the Indian Civil Service, while mother came from a Gujarati Brahmin family from Surat, where Pupul spent her yearly summer breaks. She had a brother, Kumaril Mehta and 4 sisters, Purnima, Premlata, Amarganga and Nandini Mehta. Her father's work took the family to many parts of India, where she got the opportunity to absorb local crafts and traditions early on in life.
At the age of eleven, she went to Banaras (Varanasi), where she studied in a school started by Annie Besant, theosophist, who was also active in Indian freedom movement. Subsequently her father got posted to Allahabad, where she first came in contact with Nehru family at age fifteen, as her father was a friend of Motilal Nehru. Later, she became friends with daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Priyadarshini(later, Indira Gandhi).
She attended Bedford College in London before graduating from the London School of Economics in 1936. On returning home she married Manmohan Jayakar, a barrister, and settled down in Bombay (now Mumbai).
Read more about this topic: Pupul Jayakar
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Nominee. A modest gentleman shrinking from the distinction of private life and diligently seeking the honorable obscurity of public office.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“The Supreme Court would have pleased me more if they had concerned themselves about enforcing the compulsory education provisions for Negroes in the South as is done for white children. The next ten years would be better spent in appointing truant officers and looking after conditions in the homes from which the children come. Use to the limit what we already have.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)