JULY 21, 2019 • THE WEEK 67BOOK REVIEW
@LEISURE
ight from her
school days in
Thiruvananthapu-
ram, Dr Mary
Poonen Lukose (1886-1976)
wanted to become a doctor.
Perhaps the desire was kin-
dled by watching her father,
Dr T.E. Poonen, at work as
the superintendent of the
General Hospital there. As
her father himself had stud-
ied medicine in England, he
was keen that his academi-
cally brilliant daughter follow
in his footsteps. England was
a revelation to the young
Mary—right from getting
accustomed to wearing high
heels to doing her Christmas
shopping at Selfridges toher name missing from all
of them. She was terribly
disappointed and about to
collapse when a friend came
and congratulated her. The
relevant results had been,
apparently, put up in another
part of the building. Her
name was there on all the
lists. Overjoyed, she sent a
cable to her father. There
was great rejoicing at home,
with everyone, including the
servants, celebrating her
success.
Trailblazer is a book about
this remarkable lady, who
was the first female graduate
of Kerala, the first woman
chief of the Travancore Med-
ical Department and the first
woman legislator in India.
She was also appointed the
Durbar Physician—a rare hon-
our for an Indian woman—
and served four generations
of the Travancore royal fam-
ily. Her memoir tapers off
after she takes charge of the
Women and Children’s Hos-
pital at Thiruvananthapuram,
soon after her return to India
following her father’s sudden
death. While she could not
finish her autobiography, the
rest of Trailblazer is in theBY ANJULY MATHAI
Trailblazer: The
Legendary Life and
Times of Dr Mary
Poonen Lukose
Publisher: Malayala
Manorama
Pages: 130
Price: 0300Dr Undaunted
R
watching Shakespearean
plays in London.
One of her clearest mem-
ories in the UK was about
taking an examination at the
end of her first year in med-
ical school. She was one of
only four students who were
not from a science back-
ground. (She had done her
BA in history and economics
from Maharaja’s College in
Thiruvananthapuram, and
was the first woman to be
admitted to the college.)
She feared she would fail in
physics, if not in biology and
chemistry. When the results
were announced, in her
nervousness, she perused
the wrong lists and foundform of tributes paid to her
by her daughter-in-law Alen
(she came up with the idea
of the book), her grandchil-
dren, and various others who
knew her.
In 1917, Mary got a mar-
riage proposal from a lawyer,
Kannukuzhiyil Kuruvilla
Lukose, who would eventu-
ally become a judge of the
Travancore High Court. She
was older than he was and
when she asked him why
he was not yet married, he
replied: “I have been waiting
for you.” They got married
and had two children—Dr
Grace Lukose and K. Poonen
Lukose, who became a
diplomat.
For many years, Alen
had been holding on to the
typed-out, crumpled and
fast-yellowing pages that
Mary had written. I am glad
she compiled them into
this beguiling book. It is
simply written but compel-
ling, because the life of the
person it chronicles was so
compelling.
Some of the most endear-
ing parts of the book are
written by her grandchil-
dren—Mary, Sara and Kuruvil-
la, who called her ‘Oma’. Ku-
ruvilla, for example, recounts
an interesting incident from
his early teens when his
cousin and he pilfered bran-
dy from their grandmother’s
cupboard. They stealthily
went up to the cupboard and
swigged the brandy by turns,
ensuring they did not empty
it. Fired up by the spirit, the
two decided to sneak out to
catch a movie. Just as they
were about to leave, they
found Oma quietly standing
outside the room. “The next
morning we understood that
Oma had heard us talk and
so it was a good thing we
had not tried to sneak out,”
writes Kuruvilla. “Also real-
ized that the brandy bottle
had actually contained soya
sauce.”HAPPY FAMILY
Mary with husband Judge
K.K. Lukose, daughter
Grace and son Poonen