Remembering the first Hindu woman, a widow, who 100 years ago this year received the BA degree at the Univ of Madras. A long blog for sure but worth the time - Read on patiently. In order to appreciate the extraordinary achievements of this extraordinary woman, first you have to visualise the background of conservative and orthodox customs of the Brahmins in Madras in those days. Widows, often child-widows, led the most pitiable lives in houses where they were treated as unpaid servants and outcasts. Their heads were shorn of hair and they wore always the white saris (9 yards)even though they were children. Forbidden to attend all festivals and forced to subsist on one plain meal a day. It was in this milieu that a girl was born in 1886 to RV Subramania Iyer, a professor in Teachers' College, Saidapettai, Chennai. The girl's mother, Visalakshi and her child-widowed Chitty Valambal were learned and instilled in the child all that was the best in Indian cultur...