Iravati Karve

Ph.D. (1930, Berlin). This renowned anthropologist was the Head of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Deccan College. She presided over the Anthropology division of the National Science Congress in 1947. She wrote extensively on a wide variety of academic subjects and otherwise. Her writings include the highly acclaimed book 'Yuganta' which won the Sahitya Academy Award.

An excerpt from the publication "Not so quiet has flown the Iravati":
"The name Iravati is rather unusual, but then her whole life was unusual. The daughter of Hari Ganesh Karmarkar was born in Burma in 1905 when he was working as an engineer there and was named after the river Irawady. At the age of seven she was sent to India for schooling to Huzoor Paga, a boarding school for girls (and one of the first schools for girls in Maharashtra), in Pune. There she made friends with a classmate, Shakuntala Paranjpye, daughter of Wrangler R.P. Paranjpye. Shakuntala’s mother took Iravati to stay with her family: this was to change the course of her life. At this intellectual, atheistic household, she was exposed to a wide range of books and people, one of whom was judge Balakram, who instilled in her an interest in anthropology, a field in which she was to work and leave her mark. It was during this period that she met and later married Dinakar Karve, a Professor of Chemistry in the Fergusson College,Pune, the second son of Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve, one of the pioneers in the field of women’s education and widow remarriage in the country."