Jyothi Thottam is a senior opinion editor at The New York Times. Her new book Sisters of Mokama is a history of six Catholic nuns from Kentucky who traveled to India in 1947 to set up a hospital there just as India was breaking free of English rule. Thottam’s own mother is one of the nurses who trained at the hospital, which still exists in a slightly different form today. We talk about what made this venture and the hospital so radical.
![07/28/21 - (EDT) - RANDALL, NY - Jyoti Thottam photographed in Randall, New York Photographed August 3, 2021. # 30258430A ( Photo by Damon Winter/ The New York Times )](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0796142/2147483647/strip/true/crop/300x450+0+0/resize/880x1320!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F21%2Fcd%2Fc60edd4d42af997c42039981927c%2Fthottam-jyoti-damon-winter-2021.jpg)
Damon Winter/The New York Times
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