Toru Dutt (4 March 1856 – 30 August 1877) was a Bengali poet from the Indian subcontinent, who wrote in English and French. Toru was the youngest child of three, after her sister Aru and brother Abju. She and her siblings spent most of their childhoods in Calcutta, splitting their time between a house in the city and a garden house in the suburb of Baugmaree, where she composed many of her poems. Dutt was initially educated at home by her father, and by the Indian Christian tutor Babu Shib Chunder Bannerjea, learning French and English, and eventually Sanskrit, in addition to her first language of Bengali. She also learnt about Indian folklore and mythological tales from her mother. In 1869, when Dutt was thirteen, Dutt’s family left India, making Dutt and her sister some of the first Bengali girls to travel by sea to Europe. The family spent four years living in Europe, one in France and three in England. They also visited Italy and Germany. In 1871, they moved to Cambridge, where they remained until 1873. In 1872, the University of Cambridge offered a lecture series, ‘Higher Lectures for Women,’ which Toru Dutt attended with her sister Aru, even in times where women were not encouraged to do higher studies. Toru Dutt returned to Calcutta in 1873, at age seventeen, where she found it challenging to re-integrate with a culture which now seemed like “an unhealthy place both morally and physically speaking” to her Europeanized and Christianized eyes. But she realised eventually that India as her true home. She utilised her time well by reinvigorating her studies of Sanskrit with her father, and hearing her mother’s stories and songs about India. Her poetry comprises A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields consisting of her translations into English of French poetry, and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan which compiles her translations and adaptations from Sanskrit literature. A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields was published in 1876 without a preface or introduction. It contains 165 poems, mostly translated from French into English by Dutt, except for one poem composed by Dutt, “A Mon Père,” and eight poems translated by her sister. Her second book, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan was published posthumously in 1882, with an introductory memoir by Edmund Gosse. This book has magnificent poetry in ballad form depicting characters and themes from Indian and Indian Mythology, like Sita, Dhruva, Prahlad, The Lotus, Savitri, Our Casuarina Tree among others. She died of consumption (like her younger siblings) at the tender age of 21. Please click on the titles below to read her poems.
Sonnet – Baugmaree Buttoo Savitri Sita Our Casuarina Tree Sonnet – The Lotus