Family values, in an orphanage
This is one in a series of profiles showcasing some of Harvard’s stellar graduates. Sonya Soni, her Hindi relatives have long maintained, just might be her great-grandmother reincarnated. It’s not just that Soni shares the family matriarch’s quiet determination. There’s also the uncanny connection she has always felt to a particular spot in the foothills of the Himalayas: the orphanage for Indian girls founded 74 years ago by her great-grandmother, a cast-out widow turned close follower of Mohandas Gandhi. “It’s the most sacred place in the world,” Soni said. Soni long ago decided to become a doctor and to make the orphanage — which houses more than 50 girls and widows, educates 300 local children, and provides health care to the community — her life’s work. What she didn’t count on was how much her ideas of service, social justice, and the orphanage’s mission would evolve over the past two years at Harvard Divinity...