On Balance : Leila Seth (3.5/5.0)

2.5 Min read

Leila Seth was the original Suitable Girl. Her mother's efforts for her arranged marriage later inspired Leila's  son Vikram Seth to write the Suitable Boy - one of the highlights of  Indian writing in English. At the end of that 1500 page tome she marries her slightly provincial pan-chewing suiter. We expect that her 'lived happily forever' would consist of dull blissful domestic life not unlike what we imagine for Elizabeth Bennet. Leila's mother and to a large extent she herself would have thought the same.

It was not to be. She did have a happy marriage, but she achieved so much more in life that the entire Suitable Boy phase of her life is one subsection of the smallest section in this book. 

Leila Seth was born in a very well to do family, with her father being employed in the Imperial Railway Services. Tragedy struck the family as her father died young leaving his wife and children at the mercies of relations and friends. Still, they managed to have very good schooling and an anglicized upper class upbringing. I expected someone from her background to mention the same tropes that I read elsewhere about how 'secular' her missionary school was and how all religions were respected equally. So I was surprised at the candour with which she describes the coercion that she was subjected to in one of the finest missionary schools in the country. The sisters were categorical in their beliefs that only the catholics would be saved and the rest would all go to hell. This impacted the young girl so much that she was not only willing to convert but also become a nun. It got so serious that her mother had to change her school at a critical point of her academic life.

One of the reasons that its difficult to draw many life lessons from this book is that Leila Seth was a  prodigal talent. Despite the conversion drama and change of school she topped the entire undivided Bengal when she took her Cambridge School Certificate exam. A few years after marriage, her husband was posted to London and she followed him there with a young child. In London this mother of 2,  decided to study law, largely to pass time in that foreign city.  In that, she ended up topping the Bar exam - the first woman of any race to have achieved that feat.

A large part of the book concerns her life and long career back in India. She combined her talent with significant determination and hard work to achieve many laurels culminating in her being appointed the first woman High Court Chief Justice in India. As with a any book spread over so many years, the development of the free Indian state forms background to the story. 

This is the not the story of Vikram Seth's mother or the protagonist of 'A suitable boy'. This book is an honest chronicle of the life and times of Justice Leila Seth. It is told in a lucid and straightforward fashion and makes for an engaging read. 

PS: As I read this book, the comparison with Mother Mary Come to me was inevitable. One of the significant differences between the life trajectories of Mary Roy and Leila Seth was that Leila Seth had the constant support and encouragement of her Suitable Boy.