Google on Friday paid tribute to Hindi poet, educationist and women’s right advocate Mahadevi Varma with a doodle on its search engine. Varma had received the Jnanpith award for her contribution to literature on April 27, 1982.

In artist Sonali Zohra’s illustration, the literary icon is seen sitting under a tree writing while surrounded by a few scenes from her works.

Varma was born in Uttar Pradesh’s Farukhabad in 1907. She spent her childhood in Allahabad where her parents enrolled her in a school for girls, which was not the norm then. Her mother purportedly inspired her to start writing. Varma started writing her first verses in Sanskrit and Hindi, in secret, while studying for her masters degree. Her roommate and fellow poet Subhadra Kumari Chauhan discovered her poetry. Soon after, Varma and Chauhan began sharing their work at poetry circles and publishing them.

She is best known for her poetry and essays that focused on her experiences as a woman, and was considered to be a major contributor to the Chhayavad movement in Hindi literature. Some of her works include her childhood memoir Mere Bachpan ke Din, Neelkanth, Yama and Gaura. Her collection of short stories, Sketches from My Past, features women she met during her stint as principal of an all-girls school.