Book Review - Muthulakshmi Reddy – A Trailblazer in Surgery and Women’s Rights - Srinivasaraghavan NC

I read the book ‘Muthulakshmi Reddy – A Trailblazer in Surgery and Women’s Rights’ by V.R. Devika and I have to say it was a highly engaging biography that was simple to read and process. Those of us who know Dr. Devika are aware of the hard work that she has put in for this book, the research for which began about four decades ago. Having attended many of her online talks, I was already quite well informed on Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy and this book provided a more extensive view of things I had pondered about while listening to Dr. Devika.

Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy was a multi-hued personality and I am sure her life and work were boundlessly difficult to document. But the book neatly arranges events in a breezy chronological fashion - starting from Muthulakshmi’s early life as the daughter of Chandrammal and Narayanasami Iyer, her struggles to obtain education, the conflict within herself to hold on to her identity as someone from a hereditary art family who did not want to continue the family tradition and so on - her life as a whole is quite inspiring and interesting. The story of how Narayanasami Iyer stood behind her entirely like a rock makes one think how progressive this particular gentleman must have been for his times.

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