From Purdah to the People: Memoirs of Padma Shri Rani Laxmi Kumari Chundawat

"In this book, a remarkable woman who is also a gifted story-teller, recounts the reminiscences of her adventurous life. Born in feudal era, she never went to school, was married at seventeen, went to live with her husband in the Rajasthan desert, and had six children. She gives a vivid portrait of the now vanished feudal world of her childhood and its transformation after independence. She also became a scholar of Rajasthani literature and published many volumes of Rajasthani folk tales and verse. She was awarded Padma Shri in 1984 for her transcription and editing of the great Rajasthani folk epic, Bagravat Devnarayan. From Purdah to the People is the story of Laxmi Kumari Chundawat’s courageous struggle to leave the feudal society she was born into and make a public life for herself in modern India. Scholars of princely Rajputana, Rajasthani literature and the creation of modern Rajasthan will all find much of importance in her account."