Lakshmibai Tilak
1868-1936 20th century
Faith won slowly through doubt and fury rather than handed down, honesty about the cost a conversion exacts on those not consulted, a memoir that refused to simplify a painful passage.
Who was Lakshmibai Tilak?
Married as a child to a Hindu poet in 19th-century Maharashtra, she found her entire world upended when her husband converted to Christianity without warning her first, leaving her to decide alone, over years of confusion and social exile, whether to follow him. She eventually did, converting herself, and later wrote a long and remarkably candid memoir about the whole ordeal (doubt, fury, loneliness, and faith slowly won, not handed to her).
In their own words
I did not receive my faith as a gift; I fought for it, alone, until it became truly mine.