By Andrea Sachs

In a high-ceilinged auditorium, in the type of place many people fear to go, Sonya Rani Choudhury conducts her chair yoga class on Tuesdays at 3 p.m.

“I firmly believe in exercise and I wanted to bring this to older adults.” Choudhury said, when West Side Rag visited her class last week at The New Jewish Home on West 106th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. We observed a series of gentle stretches and movements, guided by Choudhury, a geriatric nurse practitioner and certified yoga instructor, on staff there.

“Close your eyes and slow down,” she told the class. “Take 10 deep breaths. Inhale up. Exhale down. Raise your right arm. Now your left.” The group was quiet, listening intently, following her directions. Almost everyone was in a wheelchair. “Now, we’re going to transition to our legs. We have such gratitude for our legs, whatever pains we’re going through.” Choudhury urged them to move “like the strong warriors all of you have inside.”

The highlight of the class was the closing Hokey Pokey. Choudhury sang and danced, still leading the group, giving it her all. Then, in a shift of tempo, she offered a Sanskrit blessing of compassion. “Lokah Samastah Bhavantu. May all beings everywhere be happy and free. Good job, everyone!” she said.

Although the class was over, no one left. Suddenly, a very old man had a frenzied outburst. His words were garbled, tortured. Choudhury went to comfort him, her arm around his shoulders. “He has schizophrenia,” she later explained, when we sat down for an interview.

“I love The New Jewish Home,” Choudhury said of the facility where she has worked for nearly a decade. “It’s my family and a home to me.” When she’s not there, you can find her teaching geriatric nursing at Rory Meyers College of Nursing at NYU. Among her other activities: she’s a volunteer with New York Cares, an ESL tutor with The Open Door, an Achilles International guide to runners with disabilities, and, not long ago, she built homes with Habitat for Humanity. Her life is one of service.

Choudhury credits her family for her altruism: “Any time in my life that I was feeling depressed or anxious, they always encouraged me to look for ways to help people and use my skills in the best ways possible.”

For her extraordinary spirit and service to her older neighbors and all New Yorkers, West Side Rag names Sonya Rani Choudhury, Upper West Sider of the Month of May.

The New Jewish Home was founded in 1848, and has locations in Manhattan, the Bronx, and Westchester. At first it served New York City’s Jewish population, but now, New Yorkers of all faiths and backgrounds reside there. Most of them are on Medicaid. The Manhattan campus, which currently has 407 rehabilitation and long-term residents, is sparkling clean, with long hallways and colorful gardens. It is huge: the three buildings together have 13 patient floors and take up almost the whole block between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenues on West 106th Street.

The affection Choudhury evinces for her workplace is returned in kind by her colleagues and the residents. Dr. Jeffrey Farber, president and CEO of The New Jewish Home, is an ardent fan: “After many years of training clinicians, I believe I can identify the ones who have something special to give. Sonya is in a class by herself,” he said. Dominga Marquez, a Guatemalan-born resident of 11 years, said, she “adores“ Sonya, who is “very kind and friendly,” and that she faithfully attends Choudhury’s weekly chair yoga class. Catherine Coppolino, a retired social worker whose partner is a resident at The New Jewish Home, called Sonya “a godsend …. [My partner] is 88 and he can’t walk anymore. He was in the hospital, and, afterwards, I couldn’t handle him at home anymore. Right from the start, Sonya has always kept me posted on how he’s doing. She knows what’s going on with him, his medical problems, and she’s able to explain them to me and give me updates. We do yoga with Sonya every Tuesday. I’m so glad she’s getting him to move!”

Choudhury, 49, grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. Her family was a diverse patchwork quilt of ethnicities. Her physician father, who died in February, was Hindu; her Polish mother, a medical technologist turned teacher, was raised both Catholic and Jewish. Choudhury herself is now a member of a progressive UWS Jewish congregation.

Looking in the rear-view mirror, Choudhury’s career choice seems inevitable. She felt a strong pull towards this type of work early and volunteered at local nursing homes while in high school and college. “I was drawn to this population, as I recognized how many of these individuals were lonely and really benefitted from the company and were so appreciative. And growing up with an Indian background, you have very high reverence for your elders.”

Nonetheless, it wasn’t Choudhury’s first stop educationally. Graduating in 1999 from Michigan State University with a degree in psychology and education, she then moved to New York City to pursue a master’s degree in public administration at NYU. After graduating in 2002, she worked in various jobs in the public-service sector, including Teach for America and the YMCA of NYC. She moved to the UWS in 2018.

At 30, Choudhury decided to change careers and go to nursing school. She said she was inspired to pursue a medical career by her father, a pathologist and coroner in Detroit, and her older brother, a successful dermatologist in NYC. “Medicine is a family affair,” she explains. Her parents actually met while working together in a hospital. Choudhury’s mother was a medical technologist who subsequently became a Montessori teacher.

Choudhury considered going to medical school and was accepted to several, but decided she would be able to practice much sooner as a nurse practitioner. She finished her RN degree in an accelerated 15 months, then became a nurse practitioner, certified in geriatric and adult care. In 2022, she received a DNP (doctor of nurse practitioner) from the University of Pennsylvania.

There have been accolades along the way. In 2019, Choudhury was honored with an award from the United Hospital Fund for co-leading a project that resulted in the decrease of anti-psychotic medication use at the nursing home by nearly 50 percent. In early 2021, at the height of the pandemic, Choudhury volunteered to work in the facility’s specialized Covid unit. For five months, at no small personal risk, she helped over 300 COVID patients recover and return home.

It sounds exhausting, but Choudhury has found it exhilarating. “I can’t think of a life outside of service,” she says with conviction. “I can’t tell you the number of friendships and the joy that comes with the gratitude from the people you help. It’s always been a family motto and something that has fueled me, and gotten me through the toughest times in my life.” This February, in recognition of her efforts, Choudhury was given the Humanitarian of the Year Award by the Association of Jewish Aging Services. How do you say mazel tov in Sanskrit?

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