Description
About the book :
In 1883, an eighteen-year-old Indian woman named Anandi Joshee sailed alone from Calcutta to New York with the goal of becoming a doctor. The few allopathy doctors (who were all male) were not permitted to treat female patients.
Anandi faced critics in India and skeptics in America. Her mentor was her husband Gopal, who tutored her at home and fostered her ambition. Her unexpected champion was Theodocia Carpenter, a New Jersey housewife who initiated a three year correspondence, offering “all possible help.”
With her determination and grace, Anandi won the support of all — Indians, Americans, as well as British — who crossed her path. Three thousand supporters attended her 1886 graduation from the Woman’s Medical College in Philadelphia.
Using original letters, university archives, and newspaper accounts, “Radical Spirits” draws a textured portrait of British India and post-Civil War America. Exploring the relationships that Indian, British and American individuals forged by bridging cultural, political, and class boundaries is sure to be a rich and rewarding experience.
Publisher : Story Artisan Press ; Pages : 357 ; Paperback
About the Author :
Nandini Patwardhan grew up in India and has lived in the United States since the 1980s. A math major by training and software developer by vocation, she is a writer by avocation. Patwardhan started writing personal essays as a way to record her experiences as “an Indian mother raising American kids.” Soon, writing became her way of getting to the heart of her deepest convictions. A little later, she realized that her personal essays were like letters from her old self to her current self–a way to remember, map the journey, and create meaning.
In writing “Radical Spirits,” Patwardhan has illuminated forgotten but important aspects of Indian and American history, especially women’s history. Hailing from the same cultural milieu and as a native speaker of Marathi, she ably synthesized the Indian side of Anandi’s story. As a longtime US resident, she was able to contextualize the cultural and social forces prevalent in America at the time that the story unfolds. In short, Patwardhan used her insider-outsider perspective in both countries she calls home to tell the story of Indian and American independent thinkers.
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