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Female Firsts: Sarojini Naidu · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Never told you a protection of I heart Radio and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: it's time for another female first, which means we are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: once again thrilled to be joined by the one, the only,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the amazing. He's welcome, Eaves, Thank you. I feel like
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I'm stepping into a circus like or something very it's
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the most basically involved gentle supporter. Serious. Yes, too early
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for acrobatics, but some vocal acrobatics perhaps. Oh yeah, you
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: know what we were just having. As we mentioned before,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: we like to discuss talk before before we start recording,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and we were just having a very interesting discussion about
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: sleep and what constitutes a nap. And I would love
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: for listeners to weigh in on that because I remember
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: when I first started podcasting, one of the first episodes
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I worked on was like, have we made sleep into
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: too much? Like? Are we stressing ourselves out too fresh
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: about getting sleep and that makes it so we can't
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: sleep anymore. It's become a stressful thing for a lot
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: of people. Yeah, And I have a feeling it's going
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to be a very controversial ask for people to answer that,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: because I know, I know there are some people who
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: love naps, but it's also naps themselves. Is a very
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: divisive topic, Like there are some people who are like
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I can't do it at all, Like I have to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: got a power through the day. Sleep comes at the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: end or the beginning, depending on whatever your personal schedule is.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it is controversial. It's the beginning and the end.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: The beginning. Oh you get philosophical riddle. Well, that is
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a good seg way into who we're talking about, because
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: we've talked before. Also, we love poetry on this show,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and we've all dabbled, for better or worse, into writing
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: her own poetry. Uh, I still wish I could find.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Next time I visit my mom's house, I'm going to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: try to find my old high school poetry book and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: I'll read someone here. Okay, you're sure you want to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: dig those up? Yes I do. Yeah, I've got like
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: four or five of my journal books that were specific
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: two poems. I think I'm made to book five. They
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: are not cute, we'll just say it that way. And
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: my poor Zang aside, that's what I've talked about before,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: also is riddled with really bad poetry that I can
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: never access again. Oh, this is like like me feeling
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: like an archaeologist trying to excavate something I want to
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: find that I tried, I cannot. I don't know about
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: old poetry, so I don't know if I told you this.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I might have last time, but I did at one
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: point digging through my mom the stuff that I had
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: in my mom's found an old book of wraps that
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I wrote. No, I don't remember this at all. I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: used to write raps. Yeah, it was a lot of
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: fun me with with a friend I get friend of mine.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: But I also found recently, well I didn't find them.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I've literally on this desk, I've had this container and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I've had a bunch of CDs in that that I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: didn't know what was on. And I just like I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, these have been here, I need to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: figure out what is on them. So I went through
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: them the other day and I found old videos, like
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: old photos, old beats that I have made, and things
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, but no poetry, no, no poetry was
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: on there. At least I want to put like Your
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Beats as a bonus track on one of these episodes
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: at the end, we can please come on, come on.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: They were so poorly made on the internet, like you
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: don't know, yeah, you don't want them? Better than I
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: could have done from that? Was it like middy? Yes,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: very inspired by who Eaves was at the time. I
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: love it. I can't say anybody but want to hear them.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I love him met Younges, I agree. I agree. All right, Well,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: well we'll table that and see if we can convince ease. Good. Look, well,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in the meantime, we are very excited to talk about
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: who you brought for us today. Can you tell us
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: who we're going to be talking about? We are talking
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: about sorogyny and I do today. So she was the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: first India m woman to be appointed President of the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Indian National Congress. And she was also the first woman
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: to be a governor in India. She was governor of
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the United Provinces. So, as we were talking about just now,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: she was a poet as well. In addition to those
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: political first that she had so very multi talented, very
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: invested in all of the things that we will get
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: to talk about today. But you know, as as is
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the case with all these first I just want to
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: remind people that like first are always in context, because
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: I know that people can jump into this series like
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: at any point in time, and that just because somebody
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: is so, I just want to go back to like
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the basics of the reason why we do this in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the first place, which is so I just want to
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: preface this by saying that, like a first doesn't mean
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: that that person is the be all, end all of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: whatever we're talking about in their field. It doesn't mean
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: they're the best, um. It doesn't mean that they were
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the only people to do what they have done, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and that they didn't have any people who led them
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: to doing um what they did and what led to
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: their accomplishments. So I just want to say that. I
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: think I'm also thinking about that because we are currently
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: in Black History Month, the month of February, and a
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: lot of first talk can happen in Black History Month,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So just want a preface with that. Also want to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: say that February is the birth month of Srogeny, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I do so it is appropriate for the time. Yes,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: always a good reminder, and I think you put it
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: so much more eloquently than I will. But in the
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: past episode you also said, like there's the kind of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: untraceable impact that people have had and when they do
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: something and someone else sees it and all the that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: support that leads to somebody's first Um. And also yeah,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: just what gets recorded and what stories get told, and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: that's one of those things we've talked about before. Also
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is like it's both exciting and frustrating. But we are
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: finding new people in history still, um, who have done things.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So always a good note. But yeah, should we jump
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: into the history here, Yeah, let's do it. So, speaking
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of February being her birth month, UM, she was born
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  Speaker 1: Sorogyny Tattoo Padhaya on February thirt eighteen seventy nine and
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: had Darabad, India. So her father was a goren Off
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: Tattoo Padhaya and her mother was Verada Sundry. And her
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: father founded the knee Zoms College in Hyderabad and was
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: its first principle. And her mother was a poet and
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: a singer. So you can see very clearly where a
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: lot of her influence came from, because there was already
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: involvement in the social and political spheres and also the arts.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: So her parents were Bengali and Brahmin. She was one
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  Speaker 1: of eight siblings. She had three sisters and four brothers
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: are the although one of her brothers died when he
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was a child. All of them were multi lingual, so
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Sarogyne spoke, understood and could write multiple languages, including or
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: do Telugu in English. So she was educated at Hyderabad
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  Speaker 1: in Madras and she did really well in school. She
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: even passed her matriculation exam from Madras when she was
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: just twelve years old. So around the time, a lot
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of other women and Indian people in general did not
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: have access to the resources and privileges that Sarogyny did
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: growing up. Her education and her ability to travel were
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a result of her family's status, so we have to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: keep that in mind as we think about her story
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and what she had access to be able to do
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: as she was ascending um. So she started writing poetry
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: early on. She wrote on her fourteenth birthday quote, my
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: joys are not what joys to childhood seem, not on
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  Speaker 1: unthinking sports. My soul was fit but nursed. It was
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: on many a brighter theme and high ideas formed my
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: radiant dream. So she had already started writing. There's also
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: like these images of her when she was younger, already
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: getting into some of her oratory skills. So we'll talk
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: about later on how she was a gray order. But
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: she's talking to her family and things like that, kind
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of on this this pedestal to everyone else and already
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: developing those skills. So she met Govin Dara Julu Naidu
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: who had just graduated from medical college and he became
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a physician. The two of them wanted to marry each other,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: but in her story there is a du around the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: fact that this was an intercast marriage and what that
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  Speaker 1: meant at the time. Her parents did disapprove of them
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: marrying at the time, but as it goes on, they
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: had a long marriage and the families ended up being
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: invested in that marriage. The Nazams of Hyderabad were the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: rulers of Hyderabad from around seventeen thirteen to nineteen fifty.
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  Speaker 1: Just for that background, but she got a scholarship. She
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: was offered a scholarship by them, and then she went
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  Speaker 1: on to study at King's College in London, then Girton College, Cambridge,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and she wrote some of her first nature poems while
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: she was traveling in rural England at Man's Um. And
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: at this time when she was traveling in England, of
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: course she was in contact with other people and met
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: other people who were already working in the English literary
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: fields at Man's being one of those people. He was
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: an English poet, and he apparently told her that she
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: needed to stop writing about things like English robbins and
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: sky larks and be a more Indian poet since she
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: was writing about the English countryside. And Arthur Simmons also
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: gave a description of her. He said quote she was
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: dressed always and clinging dresses of Eastern silk. And as
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: she was so small and her long black hair hung
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: down straight down her back, you might have taken her
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: for a child. She spoke a little and in a
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: low voice, like gentle music, and she seemed wherever she
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: was to be alone. So she ended up going back
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to India in September of eighteen and she had her
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: first child with govern Dar Julie and i do Um
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: who she who suld married her husband in nineteen o one,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: and over the next four years they had three more children.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So she already she began her lectures early on. She
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: began delivering them at colleges in India, and she quickly
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: became known as a public speaker. People really enjoyed the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: speeches that she gave and the poetic influences that showed
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: up within her speeches. In them, she talked about cast
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: she talked about religion, and she talked about India's future,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and she became more invested in women's rights and women's
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  Speaker 1: education and India's independence. She also spoke about unity between
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Hindu and Muslim people, which was an issue that other
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: people were speaking about at the time as well. So
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: she spoke at many, many meetings and conferences over the year,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: including the Indian National Congress. It would just be impossible
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to list right now and very boring to list all
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: of the conferences that she spoke at because it was
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: so many um, but the Indian National Congress is a
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: political party in India that played a really big role
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: in the countries independence movement. So she was stirred into
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: action by the things that she was seeing happen around her,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: by the changes that were happening by the British Raj
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: the British rule in India at the time, and became
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: increasingly invested and involved in being a person who was
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: physically taking action and speaking out about the things that
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: she felt needed to be changed. So things like the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: partition of Bengal in nineteen oh five, stirred action in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: her and uh the anti partition activism that was happening
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: at the time in India. So one of the people
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: who had a big influence on her was Gopaul Krishna
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: go Clay, who was a social reformer in India during
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the independence movement and who was a political mentor to
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Mohandas Gandhi had a big influence on her and he
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: ended up dying in nineteen fifteen, but before he passed
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: away they had long friendship and situation of mentorship together.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: He encouraged her work in the social and the political
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: realm and played a big role for her in that regard.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But she was still into poetry. She was still writing
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: poetry and her first major collection of poems, which was
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: called The Golden Threshold, which anyone can read online, that
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: was published by William Hyneman from London in nineteen o five.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: It was popular, It got good pressed and over the
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: years and many editions were published. In it. You can
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: read things like nature poems, poems about her life, once
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: on life and people in India, and even a poem
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: on the theme from Indian mythology. Things like Islamic culture
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and Persian poetry influenced her work, but she did write
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: her poems in English when she was actually writing. Of course,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: like we talked about earlier, she knew multiple languages, but
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: she chose to write her poems in English, and she
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: was also published in England. This was at a time
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: when there weren't many women in India who were able
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to study in England, like I said, and also didn't
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: write in English. But in the biography about Sarogyny that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: she wrote not her name, pat Mini Sangupta noted that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: it was Sarrogyny's fortune that she her poetry in the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: beginning of the twentieth century. The author said that if
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: she would have written in the post war period, she
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have had as much of an impact. In that quote,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: sophisticated and cynical atmosphere with Sir Rogyne's poetry been taken
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in many ways as very sentimental, as really lyrical, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: wouldn't quite fit into that atmosphere. So it really took
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: off at the time when Sir Rogyne was writing it.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: It was really well received by by many people. But
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: as the author of har biography explains, like that could
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: have been a very fortunate thing, because if she would
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: have written in a different time than it might not
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: have had that kind of reception. But anyway, so when
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: between the years of nineteen eleven and nineteen fifteen, when
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: her father died, she spent a lot of time in
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: the city that was then called Calcutta, which is where
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: her father lived, and between so between that city and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: between Hydrobode. In nineteen twelve, William Hyneman, that same publisher,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: published her second collection of poems, which is called The
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Bird of Time. So in a letter she wrote to
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: him about the book, she said, quote good or bad,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: there is an immense amount of my own life, pain
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: and joy in it. And one does not willingly give
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: these heartbeats to the world without wanting to be sure
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that they will find a response of sympathy. Um, so
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: here's a very important part in her life. In nineteen fourteen,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that's when she met Mahas Gandhi, what she says, was
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: in London on the eve of the Great European War
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: of nineteen fourteen. She agreed to help him in the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: war effort. And this is a huge topic that doesn't
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: have the space that it deserves here to talk about
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: all of the politics around um Gandhi and around their
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: investment in the war. Kind of the idea around the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: thought at they didn't want to press their demands while
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: the war was at hand, because they kind of didn't
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: want to embarrass Britain while they were going through their
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: own struggles. But that's another topic either way, that is
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: related to Sir Rodyne's story because this is around the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: time that she met Gandhi. They had a lifelong relationship.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So the Home rule movement did gain traction, and so
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: this idea of not pressing their demands did kind of
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: go out of the window. But Sarodyne herself became involved
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: in the national movement and throughout her life she remained
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: faithful to Gandhi's leadership and Satya Graja, and she remained
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: invested in that nonviolent resistance to British rule. It was
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: something that she spoke out about and that she practiced
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and she was a leader in as well herself. So
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: that same year she was also elected a Fellow of
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the Royal Society of Literature, which was the first time
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: an Indian woman did so. And the next year she
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: gave a speech supporting Home rule at the Indian National Congress.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: She ended with a poem called Awake, and here are
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: some of the lines in that poem. Awaken and severed
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the woes that enthrall us, and hallow our hands for
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the triumphs that call us. So it's kind of a
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: call to action for people who lived in India. She
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: traveled on a lot of lecture tours and throughout her
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: work she met and became friends with a lot of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: artists and politicians along the way. Um and she continued
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: to write poetry. So she wrote The Broken Wing and
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: that book was published in nineteen seventeen, and that ended
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: up being the last new volume of Sir Rogyne's poetry
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that was published while she was alive. There was a
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: collected edition of her poetry, The Scepter Flute, that was
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: published later in the forties, but after this point of
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: The Broken Wing being published, Sarogyney didn't pursue publishing much
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: more poetry. She focused on politics. In the book The
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Perishable Empire, the author says, quote it maybe argue that
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the poet sarogyny and Naidu's implicitly orthodox stand about a
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: woman's passive and sacrificial role may have smoothed the way
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: to her acceptance as a political leader. The temper of
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: an Indian nationalism in the early years of the twentieth
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: century was aggressively traditional. So in looking back at I
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: just wanted to share that because in looking back at
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Sarogyney's all the things that she did, the poetry that
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: she was writing, and also the political work that she
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: was doing, in the social work that she was doing,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of biographers and people who are looking at
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: her history noticed this kind of dichotomy between how she
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: was writing and the things that she was writing about
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: UM and the really bold stances that she was taking
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: in her speeches and in her public life being in
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a way incongruous. So I think it's in interesting to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: think about both of those things at the same time,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: where there is this softness and sweetness in her poetry
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and this kind of nostalgia and this broad overview and positivity. UM.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Not saying that that those were the only things she
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: wrote about, but in looking at her work as a whole,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: in the way that she wrote versus her speeches that
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: were very empowered and empowering, that were very sharp, UM,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: that were you know, they still had, of course elements
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: of her lyricism in it in them, and I don't
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: want to reduce them to being one sort of way,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: but there was that incongruity in a way from that manner,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: but also in the other regard. It's like well, in
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a way, the softness of this poetry might have made
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: her a little bit more palatable to her audience, So
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's interesting to think about. Um. She began
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: working against other things like the indentured labor of women
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in South Africa and the treatment of Indians and Eastern
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Africa in South Africa. Her actions in support of self
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: government grew as Indian issues took a back seat to
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: others for the British to like other issues that the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: British were paying attention to, these Indian issues were taken
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: a back seat to that intention was growing in India,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: so she was becoming more involved in struggles like that
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: for women's suffrage and the non cooperation movement, which was
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a campaign that was led by Gandhi to get Indian
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: people to stop cooperating with the British government but not
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: partaking in it, boycotting other things like that. She was
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: also part of the formation of the Women's Indian Association,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: which was an organization for women's rights. In nineteen this
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is when another of her first comes into play. It's
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: when she became the first Indian woman to be president
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: of the Indian National Congress. So the first woman president
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: was Annie Bessant, who was an English activist, but Saragenie
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and I Do was the first Indian woman to be president.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: She continued on with her activism and her speeches around
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the world and in the early nineteen thirties she was
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: arrested and imprisoned a couple of times for her participation
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: in civil disobedience, including her work in the Salt March.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Later on, in ninety two, she was arrested again along
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: with Gandhi for her role in the Quit India movement,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: which was a movement against British rule, and she was
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: in prison for just under two years. Um India did
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: gain its independence while she was alive, so she was
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: able to see that it gained its independence in August
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: of nineteen forty seven, and that was the year right
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: after that point when Sir Rodnie Naidu became the first
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: governor of the State of the United Provinces, which is
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Uttar Pradesh today, making her the first woman to become
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: a governor of a state there, and she was sworn
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: in on August fift She got this title of the
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Nightingale of India from her poetry, and yes, so she
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: she did get a lot of recognition during her time.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: She died on March second, nineteen forty nine in India,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: and The Feathers of the Dawn, a collection of her poetry,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: was published posthumously. So there's been a lot of commentary
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: about her work after and then in the way that
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: people felt about it um and how her relatively conservative
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: poetry was in opposition to her statements when she was
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: giving speeches. But at in the biography with her earlier,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the author sa Gupta says in the biography quote Sarogyne's
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: poetic effusions can scarcely be said to reflect her real
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: views on life. So there was of course all the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: talk of her being a spokesperson for India or representation
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of India for the Western world, and her poetry was
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: also criticized for being too romantic and sentimental and kind
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of viewing India's pass through rose colored glasses. But as
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a whole Sarogyney's work in the political sphere and the
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: poetry that she wrote. I think it's really interesting how
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: those things had to be taken together, and looking at
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: the work that she did, um as if they she
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't able to express the fullness of her humanity within
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the two of them. It's like kind of like pitting
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: different people against each other who are in the same field.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: But it's kind of pittings Rodney and I do against
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: herself in a way. UM, It's like it's okay, it's okay,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you know, um, if you're one way in your art
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and you're another way in your life. UM, I feel
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: like that's a really good thing. UM that I'm reminded
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: of when I'm looking at her legacy that when we're
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: granting art, it doesn't always necessarily mean that, um, we're
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: speaking our own views the whole time anyway. But it
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: also doesn't mean that we can't represent different parts of
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: our character in different spaces that we move within in
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: our lives. But she was recognized during her lifetime and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: after her lifetime. Her home and Hyderabad, which was known
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: as the Golden Threshold, was at one point turned into
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a hotel it's now part of the University of Hyderabad
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and her birthday February did it become a National Women's
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Day in India. So that is the story of Strogyny
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: and I do it is long, it is really interesting.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I think if anybody has time to read that nineteen
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: sixties biography of her that I mentioned, it's super well
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: worth it. You can learn a lot more about her
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: life and about and you can still read the speeches
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: um that she gave as well, and there is a
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: little bit of footage on her. There's even a very
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: short documentary of her that can be accessed online. So
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and she wrote letters as well, so a lot of
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: these things we can read about sorogyny, see a little
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: bit of her, and learn more about how we feel
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: about the legacy that she left in the work that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: she did. Because I know we talked about in the
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: beginning of the episode how first you know, really need
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: to be contextualized within other things. But also I think
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: her story is a good reminder that just because somebody
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: is a first doesn't necessarily you mean that that everybody
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: knows about them um or knows their entire story if
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: they do know anything about them. So yes, and so
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: yes first need a lot of contextual lies NG and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: also there can be a lot more left on the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: bone to uplift when it comes to people and their
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: stories around their first that we don't know and that
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: are still worth sharing. Absolutely, um, especially with this where
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: there is so much documentation and different things that we
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: could piece together to get all the multifaceted person as
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: much as we can. UM, is that context Because I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: do think sometimes a lot of people, and I've done
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: this before too, like you see the first and you're like,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: oh wow, they did that, and you don't go beyond
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: that thing where she was doing, like she was political,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: but also had all of these poetry. So if you
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: like stop it the first, you don't know all of
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: these other things that made her her that it's a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: real shame to to miss out on because she's got
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: these speeches you can read, in this poetry you can read,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and all of that stuff. So yeah, I think that's
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a really great point, and I'm very excited to check
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: out some of the some of the poetry. I like
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that it's themed. I didn't realize that earlier that it's
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: all kind of Verde related. A lot of major poetry,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: which I'm really into honestly to I also like every
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: most of these we get a cameo from like a
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: historical celebrity, and the Gandhi just bops up. Oh yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: it's a lot like that in her Um in her
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: story for sure. At Yeah, like from from different spheres
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: as well, Um, that Gandhi family. So yeah, it's a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: lot of that in the Narrows. Yeah, a lot of
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: people that she was connected with. Even um Aldre's Huxley
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: of the author A Brave New World, he pops up
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: in her story. Wow. So if she's literary like that,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that that would they would cross paths. But
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I did find it interesting that as much as we know,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: like we know the name Mahatma Gandhi, and I know
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that he was amazing and all the things that he did,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: but the fact that she was side by side with
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: him and in a lot of these movements, and I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: had no idea who she was until you brought it,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: it makes me kind of said, I'm like, wait, but
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: she was a huge significant part of this movement. And
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: not only was she that, but she was also a
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: scholar with him and had brought up these like amazing Stanzas,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, why didn't I know about her?
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: If I know something about you know what Gandhi did
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and that he represented peace, but so did she. I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: had no clue. Yeah, I think that's the case with
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, because I mean she even it
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: was to the point where she took over for Gandhi
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and leading when he wasn't there. So she had a
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: really important role in it. And it's the speed she's
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: that she gave her really well received by a lot
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of people. But still some of those things get overshadowed
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: by people like Gandhi and all of the other stuff
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: that was happening at the same time. So that's why
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: we you know, that's why we do this. Not everybody
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: can know everything. What Yes, well, we love doing this.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: We love having you Eves Um always at the delight
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and we appreciate it so much, so thank you. I
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: was always happy to be here. Yes, Um. Well, where
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: can the good listeners find you? Y'all can find me
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at not Apologizing, on Twitter at Eve's Jeff
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Cote that spelled y v E s j E F
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: F c O A T, or you can just go
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: to Eve's jeff cot dot com and you can get
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: to all of the other things from there and also
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: on many other episodes here on Sminty of Female First. Yes,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're coming to another milestone, but I
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: might be making it up. I think we're getting there.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I think so. I think we might be approaching a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: big number. Well, yes, thanks again, Eves to go check
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: that out. Listeners us online if you haven't already uh
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and you could contact us if you would like our
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: emails Stuff media mom stuff at iHeart media dot com.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at most of podcast,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've Never Told You.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, Thank you
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told
• 31:29
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• 31:30
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• 31:32
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