Li Gotami Govinda
| Li Gotami Govinda | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Ratti Petit 22 April 1906 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India |
| Died | 18 August 1988 (aged 82) Pune, Maharashtra, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Spouse(s) | Anagarika Govinda (m. 1947; d. 1985) |
Li Gotami Govinda (born Ratti Petit, 22 April 1906 –18 August 1988) was an Indian Parsi painter, photographer, writer and composer. She was also skilled in ballet and stagecraft. She gained fame with her conversion to Mahayana Buddhism and travels in Tibet.
Ratti Petit was born on 22 April 1906 in Bombay to an affluent Parsi family. Her family owned the Bomanjee Dinshaw Petit Parsee General Hospital in Cumbala Hill, Bombay. Gotami had at least one sister, Coomie Vakharia, and one brother, Maneckji Petit. She received her education in England at a school located in Harrow on the Hill and later at the Slade School of Fine Art in 1924. Ratti Petit traveled extensively across Europe, before returning to India in the 1930s. In India, she worked with artist Manishi Dey who introduced her to the Bengal School of Art, which significantly influenced her. Petit married art collector and critic Karl Khandalavala in the 1930s. However, the marriage was brief. Petit also co-founded the Camera Pictorialists of Bombay in the 1930s.
Petit traveled to Rabindranath Tagore's ashram in Shantiniketan in 1934 to study under artist Nandalal Bose, and to learn Manipuri dance. According to Li Gotami's niece, Sylla Malvi, "Her parents were not happy about her going away. In fact, my grandfather even sent her brother (Maneckji Petit) to check on her." Petit spent 12 years at Shantiniketan. She also earned diplomas from the Arts and Music Schools. She met painter Abanindranath Tagore, who taught at the arts school, eight years later. Tagore was impressed by Petit's paintings and became her mentor. According to Malvi, "She absolutely worshipped Abanindranath Tagore. It was he who told her that she would excel in religious and children's paintings".
While at Shantiniketan, Petit also studied under Anagarika Govinda, the Bolivian-German Professor of Vishwa Bharati University. Petit married Govinda in 1947, in four separate ceremonies. Civil ceremonies were held in Bombay and Darjeeling, and "lama marriage" ceremonies were performed in the Chumbi Valley by Ajo Rinpoche and by Govinda himself. Petit converted to Mahayana Buddhism, and adopted the name Li Gotami, against the wishes of her devout Zoroastrian parents. Govinda, who had acquired British citizenship in 1938, became a citizen of India in 1947. The couple lived in a house rented from the writer Walter Evans-Wentz at Kasar Devi, near Almora in northern India. Kasar Devi, in hippie circles known as "Crank's Ridge", was a bohemian colony home to artists, writers and spiritual seekers such as Earl Brewster, Alfred Sorensen and John Blofeld. Many spiritual seekers, including the Beat Poets Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, the LSD Gurus Timothy Leary and Ralph Metzner, the psychiatrist R. D. Laing, and Tibetologist Robert Thurman came to visit Govinda at his ashram. The number of visitors became so great that the couple eventually put signs to keep unwanted visitors away.
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