Rewind 123 years. The idea of a single girl studying with 100 boys was considered so scandalous that a king had to step in.The girl was Muthulakshmi Reddy who would become one of India’s first women doctors.In 1903, Muthulakshmi, who had been homeschooled after puberty, convinced her father to send her to college. Unfortunately, Pudukottai, where they lived, had no women’s colleges. “So she wrote a letter in English to the king, Martanda Bhairava Tondaiman, asking for admission into the Raja’s boys’ college,” says V R Devika, her biographer.Impressed by her academic record, the king agreed, but with a caveat. He would “observe her behaviour” for three months, and if her conduct was good, not only would she be allowed to study there, but it would also open doors for other girls.The principal objected not only because she was a girl but also because she was the daughter of a devadasi and “would corrupt the boys”. The king’s diwan backed the principal. Outraged parents threatened to withdraw their sons. One lecturer said he would resign.Martanda Bhairava ignored them, and Muthulakshmi started college.A curtain was hung across the classroom so that only the teacher could see Muthulakshmi. The boys could not see her, nor she them. She was instructed to leave the campus first every day. After she exited the gates, a bell would ring, the curtain would be removed, and the boys would step out.She later entered Madras Medical College, won seven gold medals and refused repeated marriage proposals. In 1914, anatomy professor Dr Sundaram Reddy, impressed after seeing her photograph in a newspaper, proposed. “She agreed only after he signed a declaration that she would be an equal in the marriage, that he would never resent her earning more than him, and that he would never stand in the way of her social work.”They got married in a Brahma Samaj ceremony at Theosophical Society.And yes, throughout their careers, she earned much more than he did.In 1926, Muthulakshmi was appointed to the Madras Legislative Council, from where she championed women’s education, healthcare and the abolition of the devadasi system.
