Sometime in the early 1940s, a young woman makes her way into the red-brick, Indo-Saracenic building of Madras city’s reputed Moore Market, which takes its name from Sir George Moore, President of the Corporation of Madras, who laid its foundation stone in August 1898. Crossing the long inner courtyard, she says to herself, “There is nothing in the world that is not here in this market.” She stops to look at the cutlery on display, the glassware and chinaware, the garments and textiles from distant lands, the silk, corduroy, satin, taffeta and lace. The cacophonous din from the pet market draws her attention – monkeys, rabbits, guinea pigs, Siamese cats, squirrels and cages and cages of birds. She makes a face. She hates to see birds caged.

All of a sudden, she stops gawking and reminds herself that her time is limited and so is her purse. Her household and children await her and she is here for a purpose. Somehow she has found herself with a little bit of money left over at the end of the month and knows what she wants to buy. She must also get her old flask repaired in one of the hardware shops at the back of the building where knives, spades and tools of every kind are hawked, sold and mended. But again she stops to stare at the mountains of tinned food, the preserved fruits, the prunes from California that make her mouth water … the German-made Kohler’s Chocolate catches her eye as it is a particular favourite with her children. To her horror, she finds that the price has gone up from twelve annas for a box of forty sticks to fourteen annas!

Deploring this unforeseen hike, she makes her way to the familiar corridor full of bookshops. There are old books on sale and classics of almost every country, science and philosophy books and so many more. She sighs with contentment. The Moore Market does not disappoint. It remains a treasure house for books at cheap prices. She is looking for children’s picture books made of cloth which her young children cannot tear up and eagerly begins her book hunt …

Pankajam’s essay “Madras” allows me to take the liberty of imagining a shopping expedition she might have undertaken when finding herself with spare cash and a bit of time to get out of the house. In the two decades preceding the birth of independent India, Pankajam was intensely engaged in building a home and raising her children, ever mindful that she was doing so amidst a “great cry and shout of independence”. I draw on the L–R story, my interviews with Pankajam’s firstborn Ram, and the (unpublished) memoir of her fourth child, Sundaram, to show how Pankajam fashioned herself as an enlightened and progressive mother during the 1930s and 1940s, one equally interested in the theory and practice of good parenting.

When the children came, Lakshmi was happy for she thought, “They will not be alone like me. There must be sisters and brothers in one’s life.” And she devoted all her days and nights to the care of them. She was their nurse, ayah, tutor, teacher, playmate, mother and everything.

The children responded to her love like flowers to the rain and grew and flourished in security and love. Lakshmi scoured the libraries and brought books on how to bring up children, their habit formation and other problems pertaining to older children. She read them avidly and acted on them. Soon, the news of her dedication to the children and her intelligent and loving ways towards them spread to their relatives, friends and neighbours. All stood in awe of such dedication and passionate love. And it bore fruit. All five children, three boys and two girls, became exceptionally good. They were gentle, sensitive, truthful and always eager to help anyone in need. It was never hard for Lakshmi to manage them for they had such faith in her words. They consulted her in everything. They had no secrets from her.

Pankajam took the business of child-rearing seriously and applied herself to the scientific study of child care, the diet and nutritional requirements of children and child psychology, among other themes. As her son Ram reiterated, Pankajam was determined to raise her children well and, in particular, to not lose any of them to childhood illnesses. The loss of her two brothers not so long ago and the devastation it wrought in her mother Subbalakshmi’s life rankled in Pankajam’s memory during the early years of her own motherhood. Pankajam’s diet for her children included Ovaltine (a malted drink), cod-liver oil supplements and Rowntree’s cocoa. When the Congress leader C Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) urged the public to substitute the “foreign” Ovaltine with the homegrown ragi malt, Pankajam promptly did so.

Pankajam’s enthusiasm for her children’s well-being was tempered by her sense of herself as a patriot who must heed the call to arms of a nation-in-the-making. In 1939, the educationist Maria Montessori was invited by the city’s eminent theosophist couple, George Arundale and Rukmini Devi Arundale, to move to Madras and implement her educational methods that recognised the creative potential of children, their drive to learn and the right of each child to be treated as an individual. Intrigued by this novel method, Pankajam sent her oldest child to a kindergarten school which adopted Montessori’s pedagogy and often accompanied him to observe the new system in action. Soon after, she sent him to a Madras Corporation-run Tamil-medium school, when the rising tide of the national movement (in the “Quit India” phase of the struggle) triggered a turn towards vernacular languages.

When Ram was about nine years old [1940], a great change came over the country – the cry and shout of Independence! Everyone’s mother tongue became very dear to them and we were all encouraged to boycott the use of English or any other foreign language. So, like all other mothers of that time, I sent Ram to a Tamil medium school …

Pankajam’s children did not always enjoy or appreciate her efforts on their behalf. In a memoir of his childhood that he wrote and circulated among his family in 2004, Sundaram describes his years of growing up in Panchavati House. He writes of how Pankajam would feed her children a daily diet of raw egg beaten up with milk in order to supplement their vegetarian diet, the repulsive feeling of the eggnog in the mouth and throat, and the sorry sight of his sister Mythily’s “miserable expression” as she struggled to swallow the “slimy yolk” every morning for over an hour. But it was not only the physical well-being of her children that was of concern to Pankajam, as Sundaram makes us see.

My mother was shorter than an average Indian woman, but had a big heart. She was a kind, generous person who spent a lot of time with us, helping us with school lessons and homework. She managed to discipline us mostly with persuasive words and very little physical punishment. While waiting to be married, my mother persuaded her father to buy her a complete set of the “Book of Knowledge”. So enthusiastic was she about these books that when she became a mother, she shared all her knowledge about this planet and the universe with her children. She encouraged us to read a variety of books on different subjects to appreciate the complexity of life on this earth … she was interested in flowers, watching birds and wild animals and she taught us to love these beautiful creatures. She left a strong impression on me and her interest in a variety of subjects encouraged me to get interested in several things in my life.

Pankajam home-schooled two of her younger children over several years. In the following passage, Sundaram writes of his home-school experience.

Mom’s school: At the end of World War II, my mother and all her children returned [from Tindivanam] to live with our father in Madras. My parents tried to make me go to school at the age of six or seven. I was a very nervous and shy boy and would not take to school life. I protested and demonstrated. My dislike was partly because of the type of school I was sent to. The teachers were old-fashioned and rigid, and the students were quite rough and tough. Realising that I was not emotionally ready for school, my mother, who was always more sympathetic and considerate than my father, persuaded him to let me stay home and learn under her teaching. My home-schooling time was adjusted to suit my mother’s free time. When she wanted to have a nap, she would give me some ‘homework’ to do on my own. This kind of learning in the relaxed setting of my home was thoroughly suited to my temperament. I was of course teased in the evenings by my father and brothers who enquired what I was learning in “Amma college”.

Excerpted with permission from A Woman of No Consequence: Memory Letters and Resistance in Madras, Kalpana Karunakaran, Context/Westland.