Indira Devi Dhanrajgir

Indirā Dēvi Dhanarājgīr (; 17 August 1930 – 13 January 2026), better known as Rajkumari Indira Devi,

Life and career Early life Indira was born to Raja Dhanrajgirji Bahadur, a philanthropist, and his wife, Rani Premila Devi. Her paternal grandfather, Raja Saheb Narsinghji Bahadur, was regarded "as the Rockefeller of the South."

Initially, she studied high school at Mahbub School for Girls but was later homeschooled.

She later gained recognition among literary circles with her fourth publication, Partings in Mimosa. Literary critic Usharbudh Arya described it as "a really promising talent demonstrably conscious of the restraint which the use of free verse demands... [she] gives to her 483 lines a sense of enactive rhythm, a lingering, thoughtful gusto, [and] a corresponding control of structure."

At a time of increasing literary success, she suddenly gave up writing poetry after marrying Gunturu Seshendra Sarma in 1970. She did this, affirming: "There can't be two poets in one family." Throughout her life, she was well acquainted with people like Lord Mountbatten, Ali Sardar Jafri and Kaifi Azmi, and maintained close friendships with Javed Iqbal, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Viswanatha Satyanarayana and the descendants of Nizam's family members. A painter herself, an exhibition of her artworks was held under the leadership of M. F. Husain in the 1970s in Mumbai. She resided for the rest of her life at the Gyan Bagh Palace. Their wedding took place at the Hoysaleswara Temple in Karnataka.

Death Rajkumari Indira died at her residence on 13 January 2026, at the age of 95. Anuradha Reddy described her passing as a loss that closes a chapter in the city"s social life, saying, "[She is] one of the last personalities who truly represented Hyderabad of that period."

Honours She became the first President and Chairperson of Hindi Academy of Andhra Pradesh, and vice-president of the Telugu Writers Conference in 1968.

In November 2019, the Rajkumari Indira Devi Hall (originally the Golden Threshold) at University of Hyderabad was inaugurated in her honour, transforming it into a cultural and literary hub. An autobiographical book entitled Alanati Kadha was published by D. Chandrasekhar Reddy in her honor.

Publications

Poetry collections The Apostle (Ajoykumar Mitra, 1964) Return to Eternity (Ajoykumar Mitra, 1965) Yearnings and Other Poems (N.P., 1966) Partings in Mimosa (M.L. Dhawan, 1968) Poems of My National Memory (Indian Languages Forum, 1976) Wind Blows from the Scaffold (N.P., 1976)

Private distributions Commitment (1969) Tide (1974)

Non-fiction Memories of the Deccan (Visual Quest India, 2008)

Translations Seshajyotsna: Telugu Modern Indian Classic by Guṇṭūru Śēṣēndraśarma (Indian Languages Forum, 1974) (translated into English)