Rajani Manjeshwar Sharma passed away quietly on December 7, 2021 at the age of 85. Beloved wife, sister, and mother, she is predeceased by her husband Dr. Chakravarthi Sharma and her sister Malini Balsekar, and survived by her sister Nirmala Balse (Manohar), her brother Jayant Manjeshwar (Surekha), her sons Dr. Ravi Sharma (Renee), Dr. Shashi Sharma (Lee) and Lt. (ret.) Sudhir Sharma (Karin), her daughter Dr. Sushama Brimmer (Brian), grandchildren Katelynn (Aaron), Samantha, Sam, Rachel, Susheela, Sunil (Abbie), Seema, Sunita, and great-grandchild Olivia.
Born in Bombay (now Mumbai), India, she had an exceptional mind and flourished in academics. She graduated with her B.Sc. and M.Sc in Organic Chemistry from St. Xavier’s College in Bombay, earning first class honors, the Rajadhyaksha Gold Medal and the Chemistry Research Scholarship at St. Xavier's College. She was one of the first five recipients of the Marguerite N. Farley scholarship for post-graduate work at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, where she undertook post-graduate work in Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry.
As a mother, she had a quiet strength and loving nature that guided her children through their lives in multiple cultural worlds of India and the United States. She imparted her strong academic ethic so that her children excelled in school, college, and post-graduate work to high levels of achievement. With her husband, she was among the founding members of the Sri Veela Venkata Satyanarayana Temple in Kenner, LA — one of the many ways they sought to build and bind a community of the Indian diaspora in the New Orleans area. She and her husband authored books on Hindu philosophy including: Self-Offerings, Shivam, Isopadesam, and Sacchidanandini.
Among all this, she established a career, maintaining a job as a research laboratory technician at LSU Medical School for more than 15 years. She enjoyed playing music, especially the sitar and the harmonium, and had the rare ability to play just about any instrument she touched. She enjoyed cooking and was able to pass along family-favorite Indian recipes and techniques to all her children, passing along a love for Indian snack foods and sweets. Arguably, her idli and onion sambhar, bhel puri, and masala dosa were among the very best, and helped to preserve the Indian in her children growing up in the United States.
Upon retirement, she enjoyed traveling both within the United States and internationally, visiting national parks and making time for family and friends. She lived in the Dallas area over the last twenty or so years, enjoying a new community of friends in the area. There is no doubt that she will be missed.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to either: the Sankara Nethralaya Ophthalmic Mission Trust Inc (http://omlog.org/), a charitable not-for-profit eye hospital that brings world class eye care to the people of India, or AIM for Seva (https://aimforsevausa.org/), a charitable organization dedicated to bringing high quality education to rural India.