Patna to Poughkeepsie
A while ago, I emailed the writer Amitava Kumar of Patna who teaches literature at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie.
When I email a writer, it is because: I like their work, their writing has touched me in some way, and I want to record my appreciation. Fan girl stuff really — nothing more. But this time, I was also writing to tell A.Kumar about an Indian woman whose remains were interred in a cemetery in Poughkeepsie, a woman whose story obsesses me. She was the first Brahmin woman to leave home and come to America in search of an education. That was in the 1800s. I was hoping A.Kumar would make something more of this woman’s story — more than I ever could.
Soon enough, Anandibai did make it into A.Kumar’s writing. He used the factoid I sent him in this essay — Changing Homelands.
Earlier this year, my mother passed away in Patna. When I returned from her funeral I asked myself a question. What would have happened if she had been living with me and died in Poughkeepsie? And somewhere beneath it was another question. Will I die here in this town in America?
A few months ago, a stranger sent me a link to a grave in Poughkeepsie where the ashes of Anandabai Joshee are interred. Joshee was the first Indian woman to obtain a doctor’s degree. Her gravestone, in Poughkeepsie’s Rural Cemetery, reads: “Anandabai Joshee, M.D, 1865-1887 First Brahmin Woman to Leave India to Obtain an Education.”
Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery is a nine-minute drive from my apartment. After my mother’s death, I discovered that the same Rural Cemetery houses the local crematorium. I went to visit it and the receptionist in the small office showed me laminated photographs of the facilities. The crematorium was a bit like a suburban two-car garage with its wide doors. There was a picture of the adjoining “viewing room,” a plain space with three chairs and a painting on the wall that showed a rushing brook in a forest. Only two or three close family members would be allowed to sit with the body; later, they could be present when the body was put in the container that slides into the crematorium.
The receptionist said, “You can stay for about 15 minutes to say your prayers but not longer. Otherwise it ties things up.” The ashes could be collected the next day. I was told that the cost of the cremation was $350 (but only $250 for a child under 10).
A. Kumar sent me the link to the piece, which I might’ve missed otherwise. I appreciate his taking the time to do that. And yet I felt hurt by the word “stranger.”But seriously what other word could he have used to describe me? We have never met. I know him through his writing. He does not know me. It is the right word in this context. Sigh!