Who is the author of 'Smriti Chitre', the Marathi memoir translated as 'The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife'?

"Smriti Chitre" ("Memory Pictures") is the Marathi autobiography of Lakshmibai Tilak (1868-1936), published in four parts between 1934 and 1937. It is regarded as one of the finest autobiographies in Marathi literature.

About the book:

• Lakshmibai was married at the age of 11 to Narayan Vaman Tilak, a Marathi poet.
• The book describes her life with her unconventional, idealistic and often unpredictable husband, their poverty, and their travels.

It describes the crisis in her life when her husband converted to Christianity in 1895. She was at first deeply upset and refused to follow him, but she later also converted.

It is written with great honesty and humour, and paints a vivid picture of Maharashtrian family and social life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

It was translated into English as "I Follow After" (1950) and later as "Sketches from Memory" and "Smriti Chitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife".

About Narayan Vaman Tilak (1861-1919):

• He was a Marathi poet, known for his devotional Christian poetry written in the style of the Marathi bhakti saints.
• He is not the same person as the nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

Other pioneering Marathi women writers and reformers:

• Savitribai Phule: poet and educator; "Kavya Phule" (1854); India's first woman teacher.
• Tarabai Shinde: "Stri Purush Tulana" (1882), a fierce feminist essay.
• Pandita Ramabai: "The High-Caste Hindu Woman" (1887); founded the Sharada Sadan and the Mukti Mission.
• Anandibai Joshi: the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree in Western medicine (1886, USA).

Ramabai Ranade: "Amachya Ayushyatil Kahi Athavani" (memoirs of her life with Justice M. G. Ranade).

Why not the other options?

• ✗Savitribai Phule wrote "Kavya Phule".
• ✗Pandita Ramabai wrote "The High-Caste Hindu Woman".
• ✗Tarabai Shinde wrote "Stri Purush Tulana".