BHUBANESWAR: Laxmi Bai, wife of former External Affairs minister and Governor late P Shiv Shankar, passed away in the wee hours of Thursday. She was 94.
Laxmi Bai was the first woman graduate of the state. She was the maternal niece of internationally-renowned violinist, Dwaram Venkatswamy Naidu. Her father, originally from Yelamanchili in Vizag district, had moved to Jeypore in Odisha. She was popular for being the perfect host especially when her husband was the EAM and also when he served as Governor of Sikkim and Kerala. Between the age of 80 and 90 years, Laxmi Bai received two Doctor of Philosophy (PhDs) and a Doctor of Litterature (D Litt). In one of her PhDs, Laxmi Bai had received a gold medal as well as a lifetime achievement award.
The thesis she submitted to the Osmania University for the first among the two PhDs was on ‘Bhagwad Geeta and its relevance to the modern day man’. It was a near 5,000-page dissertation completely handwritten by her at her age of 80.