Some stories begin with a discovery. For Delhi-based lawyer Dr Ranjana Kaul it was when she chanced upon her grandmother’s heirloom. In 1967, during a visit to her ancestral home in Sangli, Kaul, then 17, remembers finding the Sadhya Sthithi-Sansaratilkahi Chitre, a slim booklet gathering dust on a shelf inside a wall niche. “It stood out, because it was half the size of the other books,” says Kaul. “When I leafed through the yellowing pages, I found the name ‘Laxmi Tanaya’ in Devnagiri.” 

Curious, Kaul took the book to her father; he told her the “unexpected and compelling” story of her grandmother Laxmibai Abhyankar, who wrote in Marathi under this pen name in the early 1900s. At the time, Laxmibai, whom Kaul addressed as mothi aai, was ailing but still the matriarch helming affairs at Abhyankar house in Sangli.