Sunday, August 1, 2010

Hemendranath and his children (contd-1)

Hemendranath's youngest child was a daughter, Sudakshina nee Purnima Devi (later Mrs. Jwala Prasad) who was born on 13th May, 1884 at no.6, Dwarakanath Tagore Lane, Jorasanko, Calcutta. Purnima devi was educated at the Loreto Convent  (a school for European girls) at Park Street, Calcutta, as a day scholar and in addition to English she knew Bengali, Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi, French, Piano, and Violin. She passed the Cambridge Trinity College Music Examination. She is the first Bengali woman to marry into the United provinces, her husband being the late Hon'ble Pandit Jwala Prasad, M.A., Deputy Commissioner of Hardoi, (an officer in the Imperial Civil Services, whose great grand father was Late Kunwar Jitendra Prasad, a vetaran Congress Party Leader, in 1903). She was the winner of the B.P.R.A. medal for Diana matches for schooling (1911 Meerut). She was an expert rider going round her villages on horse back and an expert hunter having taken part in big game shooting with her husband. She took a very keen interest in the education and upliftment of women in India. In memory of her husband she founded 'The Pandit Jwala Prasad Kanya Pathsala' at Shahjahanpur in UP. She helped in the establishment of the Hewett Model Girls' school at Muzaffarnagar, United Provinces, and founded Pardah Clubs at Shahjahanpur and Muzaffarpur with a view to the improvement of Pardanashin women. She was the owner of several villages in Shahjahanpur District and a beautiful hill property at Nainitala (Uttarkhand) called Abbotsford, Prasad Bhawan (http;//www.abbotsford,in/History.html). There now lives the fourth generation of Prasads who carry their ancestral heritage.  She also had a house now acquired by the Army and a beachhouse in Puri. She was the author of a Hindi publication, "unki bunat ki Prathaiji Siksha" adopted by the United peovinces Educational Textbook Committee for schools. She was engaged in writing a novel in English under the Title of "The last lamp out". she was the holder of a Kaisar-i-Hind medal and was the first Indian woman exempted from the operation of the Arms Act.