"This book is a search for 'the real Anandibai Joshee' -- a search in which the readers are invited to participate." In her short and eventful life, Anandibai Joshee, the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree, broke many stereotypes. Literate at a time when it was taboo for a girl to attend school or even 'pick up a paper', she was courageous, articulate, and assertive. And ambitious. Fuelled by a desire to improve the healthcare that was available to Indian women at that time, she travelled across the seas to the United States to study medicine. Meera Kosambi's biography of Anandibai is more than just a retelling of the life of a woman who was ahead of her times. Drawing on a host of narratives, Kosambi recovers Anandibai's many voices, which have been submerged in history - that of a conflicted feminist, a nationalist, and a reformer, among others - and her engagement with the world at large. This volume is a testament to Meera Kosambi's commitment to social history. When she passed away in 2015, she left an incomplete manuscript that has painstakingly been put together by the editors. Drawing on archival research, including a host of Anandibai's letters, her poems in Marathi, newspaper reports, and rare photographs, this book will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, sociology, gender, and South Asian studies.

This book presents a lucid, comprehensive, and entertaining narrative of culture and society in late 19th- and early 20th-century Maharashtra through a perceptive study of its theatre and cinema. An intellectual tour de force, it will be invaluable to scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, theatre and film studies, cultural studies, soc

This book looks at the life of Pandita Ramabai, one of the major social reformers of 19th-century India. Her unique life trajectory spanned across a pan-Indian, orthodox Hindu mould to being part of Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana Samaj, and further to Christianity. At the age of 30 she had travelled widely within India and across the world, from USA and UK in the West to Japan in the Far East. She reported these fascinating journeys to international friends and fellow Maharashtrians in both English and Marathi. Fighting conservatism and marginalization she set up several projects to empower women, notably, the Sharada Sadan in Mumbai and the Mukti Mission in Kedgaon near Pune in Maharashtra. This work locates Pandita Ramabai within her liminal social milieu and discursive networks during various phases of her life, and traces her diverse ideological routes along with her critical writings, some of which have been retrieved and/or presented in English translation here for the first time, including The High-Caste Hindu Woman and the newly discovered Voyage to England. Offering a comprehensive insight into aspects of 19th-century Indian society - religion and reform, women's rights and feminism, social movements, poverty, and colonialism - this book will greatly interest researchers and students of South Asian history, sociology, and gender studies.

This book looks at the life of Pandita Ramabai, one of the major social reformers of 19th-century India. Her unique life trajectory spanned across a pan-Indian, orthodox Hindu mould to being part of Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana Samaj, and further to Christianity. At the age of 30 she had travelled widely within India and across the world, from USA and UK in the West to Japan in the Far East. She reported these fascinating journeys to international friends and fellow Maharashtrians in both English and Marathi. Fighting conservatism and marginalization she set up several projects to empower women, notably, the Sharada Sadan in Mumbai and the Mukti Mission in Kedgaon near Pune in Maharashtra. This work locates Pandita Ramabai within her liminal social milieu and discursive networks during various phases of her life, and traces her diverse ideological routes along with her critical writings, some of which have been retrieved and/or presented in English translation here for the first time, including The High-Caste Hindu Woman and the newly discovered Voyage to England. Offering a comprehensive insight into aspects of 19th-century Indian society - religion and reform, women's rights and feminism, social movements, poverty, and colonialism - this book will greatly interest researchers and students of South Asian history, sociology, and gender studies.

This book captures the social and cultural history of Maharashtra from the 1840s to Independence. Tracing the emergence and the developmental stages of Marathi theatre and cinema, the volume unravels how public entertainment formed an integral part of culture, while also discussing defining moments in theatre, major playwrights, actors, the young film industry as well as gender politics in the realm of the stage and silver screen.

"This book is a search for 'the real Anandibai Joshee' -- a search in which the readers are invited to participate." In her short and eventful life, Anandibai Joshee, the first Indian woman to earn a medical degree, broke many stereotypes. Literate at a time when it was taboo for a girl to attend school or even 'pick up a paper', she was courageous, articulate, and assertive. And ambitious. Fuelled by a desire to improve the healthcare that was available to Indian women at that time, she travelled across the seas to the United States to study medicine. Meera Kosambi's biography of Anandibai is more than just a retelling of the life of a woman who was ahead of her times. Drawing on a host of narratives, Kosambi recovers Anandibai's many voices, which have been submerged in history - that of a conflicted feminist, a nationalist, and a reformer, among others - and her engagement with the world at large. This volume is a testament to Meera Kosambi's commitment to social history. When she passed away in 2015, she left an incomplete manuscript that has painstakingly been put together by the editors. Drawing on archival research, including a host of Anandibai's letters, her poems in Marathi, newspaper reports, and rare photographs, this book will be of immense interest to scholars and researchers of modern Indian history, sociology, gender, and South Asian studies.