Lalithambika antharjanam autobiography of a yogi

This article is a part of the #IndianWomenInHistory campaign for Women’s History Month to remember the untold legacies of women who shaped India, especially India’s various feminist movements.

In one of the stories told about her birth, as recounted in her memoirs, Lalithambika Antharjanam, writer and social activist, tells of an incident that “affected her very deeply over the years.” Lalithambika writes of herself in the third person in Balyasmriti (Childhood Memories), and in Gita Krishnankutty’s translation in the collection Cast Me Out If You Will (1997), we can infer with absolute clarity the domesticated shock of this incident for both the father and the daughter.

Lalithambika writes,“”When her father, a learned man of progressive views, heard that a daughter had been born to him, he exclaimed angrily, “No, I will not live here any longer.