From India's
The Telegraph:
Recounting memories of early
childhood to her daughter, Indira Debi,
Jnanadanandini Debi, wife of Satyendranath
Tagore, first Indian member of the Indian Civil
Service, remembered being allowed to sit in the pathshala run in her father's home
together with the other students - all boys. She
was very young indeed - perhaps only five at the
time. By 1859, when she was all of seven, she
was a bride in the large and intimidating Tagore
household. When she was older, Jnanadanandini's
husband took care in working towards a
companionate marriage and introduced his wife to
travel and the world beyond the home.
Satyendranath Tagore had sought
his father's permission to send his wife for a
stay in England on her own. Much later,
Jnanadanandini commented that "my husband
probably sent me so that I would acquire some of
the manners and customs of the British; he was a
great admirer of theirs". Though he did visit
the family during their two-and-a-half years
stay abroad, Jnanadanandini coped alone - even
with the anguish of losing a child. Earlier, she
had lived with Satyendranath on his postings in
western India, mixing freely with Parsi and
Gujarati families.
On
returning from England, Jnanadanandini decided
to move to Calcutta and set up a household
separate from that of the large Tagore family
establishment at Jorasanko. A bold step indeed -
but then she was an amazing woman who made full
use of the opportunities at hand. Her home
became a favourite haunt of Rabindranath's
[Tagore, aka Gurudev, 1913 Nobel Prize in
Literature winner] and it was from here that his
child-bride, Mrinalini, was schooled at the
nearby Loreto Convent and trained in various
other social and housewifely skills by her much
older, sophisticated sister-in-law . . . .
Source: tarnizzat.wordpress.com