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Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Zerbanoo Gifford travelled for almost three years over 60 countries, meeting over 300 women who had changed the world a wee bit in their own way. In fact her husband joked that she was becoming a serial womaniser.

But all that “womanising” led Zerbanoo Gifford, 57-year-old writer, human rights campaigner, and community activist, to put together the book “Secrets of the World’s Inspirational Women”. An Indian raised in London, Zerbanoo was keen to write a global book on women across all endeavours. And opportunity came in the form of the National Endowment of Science, Technology and Arts (NESTA) fellowship in 2004.

In a way, Zerbanoo herself would befit an entry into the book — she was the first non-white Asian woman from the Liberal Party to be elected thrice to Parliament. An adviser to the former British Home Secretary, member of the Race Relations Forum, and director of Anti-Slavery International, she also chaired the commission looking into “Ethnic Minority Involvement In British Life”. In short she was one of the pioneers of Asian women in British public life. She’s also founder-director of the Asha Foundation that supports philanthropy worldwide.

The book is not, as one expects, a series of profiles but views and opinions of these women sorted out thematically. “A series of profiles is extremely boring,” declares Zerbanoo in an interview. She was recently in Bangalore to release her book as part of the India promotional tour. “People are interested in themes and what I feel about these women. CVs don’t explain journeys they’ve taken and how they’ve responded to life. You have feminist books on anger but this is one of admiration.”

Moreover, she says, people today don’t want to read; they only want to skim the pages. And this book works fine in such a format. She wanted to feature women who had changed their communities but were not household names.

But why a book only on women? “I was interested in women. They have complex personalities. Most people adore women but not many write about them. Having met so many of them, I found they had certain qualities — they had a long-term view of life, wanted to be of service to a wider community , were more consensus minded, took more risks than men and were willing to fail, were more creative and worked harder than men.” Is there something really like a secret to success? “People want to know secrets of successful women… sweetness of being is the secret. No self-help book ever says that. But this is different from the hand manual of commercial gurus who tell you what to do; it’s all dated.

They tell you about winning but never about sharing success. Nobody tells you about failure.” The next project is to put the interviews on camera to be shown in schools everyday.

BHUMIKA K.

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