ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Janaki’s student years in Madras, at the Queen Mary’s College, the first women’s college in the city; she had enrolled for the First Examination in the Arts course (FA) in 1915 and would complete it in 1917. This would be followed by an honours degree (BA) (1921) with botany as main from Queen Mary’s and the Presidency College in what was a cosmopolitan city, and where she would see Gandhi for the first time. The chapter shines light on her college life, love for science and Shakespeare, being inspired by Gandhi and on some of her illustrious contemporaries, including a Thiya woman botanist, who was among the first graduates of the Madras University, and on family matters. Immediately on graduation, Janaki would be appointed a professor at the Women’s Christian College; the WCC played a major role in promoting the teaching of science at college level among young women in Madras in the early twentieth century. By the end of two years, of teaching at the WCC, Janaki would be awarded the prestigious Barbour Scholarship (1924–26) to specialise in botany (MA) at the University of Michigan.
