India’s first woman doctor, Anandi-bai Joshee, received wide attention thanks to a Google Doodle in 2018 and a Marathi feature film in 2019. However, not many know her entire history. Author Nandini Patwardhan, over the course of ten years, lovingly uncovered the full story using Anandi’s own letters, collections held by American institutions, and newspaper archives. At our Online Talk #RadicalSpirit, she traces Anandi’s story in India and the US, with a special focus on her time in Mumbai and answers questions such as: Why did she go to the US and not to England? What were her experiences during the sailing to New York? And what does her story have to do with Pandita Ramabai, Swami Vivekananda, and craters on Venus? 

Please note: The event link will be shared a couple of hours before the talk

About the speaker

Nandini Patwardhan is an alumna of St. Columba School, Jai Hind College, KC College, and IIT Bombay from where she obtained a Masters degree in Mathematics. She has lived in the US for the last four decades and is a retired software engineer. A winner of the San Francisco Press Club award, “Radical Spirits,” her biography of Anandi-bai Joshee won the 2021 Benjamin Franklin Award.