Obituary for
Pushpa Khurana
It is with great sadness that the family of Pushpa Khurana announces her passing on November 9, 2018, at the age of 88 years. She died peacefully in her home in Lagrangeville, NY, surrounded by family.
She will be lovingly remembered and deeply missed by her son Sunil and daughter-in-law Seema. She will also be profoundly missed by her granddaughter Swati and husband Andres Marquez, her granddaughter Nidhi, and grandson Maanuv and his wife Yi Yang. She was the beloved great-grandmother of Shalini Paloma Marquez.
Pushpa Khurana (nee Chowdhry) was born in Sargodha, a suburb of Lahore on May 27, 1930. At the time of her birth, Lahore was part of colonial India, in the province of Punjab. When India gained independence on August 15, 1947, the country split into India and Pakistan. Pushpa, along with an estimated 14 million other Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, crossed treacherous borders, in what the United Nations High Commission on Refugees has called, “the largest mass migration in human history.” They landed temporarily in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh before setting in the Karol Bagh area of New Delhi, during which Pushpa completed her B.A. and M.Ed and married Harbans Lal Khurana.
In 1951, Pushpa and her husband made a life for themselves and their sons (Sunil born in 1952 and Sanjeev in 1954) first in Ludhiana, then Simla, and finally in the city of Chandigarh. There, Pushpa was a respected teacher at the Government School for Girls, where she taught Hindi, Social Studies and History. One of her students was a gifted writer and charismatic actress, Seema, who would become her daughter-in-law. Pushpa enjoyed seventeen years of domestic tranquility, until tragedy stroke. In 1968, her husband Harbans Lal died suddenly of kidney failure. Two years later, Pushpa, a widow at the age of 38, lost her beloved younger son Sanjeev Khurana, who died at the age of 16 from meningitis.
She moved to Delhi in 1970 to live with her parents and brother, while her son Sunil studied medicine at Rothak in nearby Haryana. She continued teaching, while her son completed medical school, married Seema and had a daughter Swati. In 1978, Pushpa left her teaching position to come to America, to join her son, his wife, and her two-year-old granddaughter.
In America, where she lived for forty years, Pushpa helped to raise the growing family. Her cherished granddaughter Nidhi was born in 1980, and her dear grandson Maanuv was born on her birthday in 1986.
Keenly independent and devoted to her family, Pushpa learned how to drive at the age of 54 once she realized that the only place in the tree-laden Hudson Valley that she could walk to was the mailbox. In addition to driving her grandchildren to after-school activities and going to grocery stores where she was the maven of the “triple coupon,” she worked in her son Sunil’s medical practice for 10 years, assisting in billing.
She was an active and integral member of the local Hindu Samaj community. A respected elder, she conducted monthly Vedic Havans for nearly 30 years. Her love and commitment to education was not limited to the Hindu Samaj, as she taught an advanced course in Hindi at Vassar College’s Self Instructional Language Program. She also began teaching Hindi language courses to children of all ages. She was a guest DJ at Vassar College’s WVKR Hindi music program, sharing stories of lesser known Hindi film legends. Additionally, she contributed to the Partition Narrative archive, an oral history project at Yale University.
Pushpa was preceded in death by her husband Harbans Lal Khurana, her son Sanjeev Khurana, her parents Devi Dayal Naubat Rai & Laxmi Devi Chowdhry, her brothers Jaswant Rai & Surinder Mohan Chowdhry, and her sister Arun Taneja.
She was a superlative elder, passing on both spiritual wisdom and no-frills advice in equal measure. While Pushpa’s roots are in India, the home in which she lived the longest-27 years--was in Lagrangeville, NY. In the greater New York area, she is survived by several nieces, nephews and extended family, by whom she will lovingly be remembered as Mama, Dadi, Auntie-ji, Bhua-ji, and Pushpa Nani. The Khurana family would like to express their gratitude for those who lovingly cared for Pushpa in her final days--her generous niece Niru Marwaha, her gentle caregiver Dipu, and the wonderful nurses at the Hudson Valley Hospice.
A service celebrating of Pushpa’s life will be held at McHoul Funeral Home, 895 Route 82, Hopewell Junction. The viewing and wake will take place on Monday November 12, 2018 from 6:00-8:00pm; and the Vedic ceremony will take place on Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at 12:00pm, followed by cremation at Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery.
Those who so desire may make donations in honor of Pushpa Khurana to support rural education in India through the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation or to the local Hindu Samaj. (Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA, 1712 Hwy 6 South, Ste A, Houston, TX 77077 or https://www.ekal.org/us/donate; Hindu Samaj, 3 Brown Rd, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 or http://hindusamajtemple.com/?page_id=221).
Please visit Pushpa’s Book of Memories at www.mchoulfuneralhome.com.