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Inspired by women
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INTERVIEW Zerbanoo Gifford talks about her book “Secrets of the World’s Inspirational Women”
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GENDER TALK Zerbanoo Gifford says she doesn’t mind being called a feminist
She is known as the “political fireball” in the U.K. She made history when she was elected as the first non-white woman Liberal Councillor in London in 1982. She is also known for championing women’s causes, especially Asian women i
n public life.
No wonder when Zerbanoo Gifford wrote “Secrets of the World’s Inspirational Women” recently, no one was surprised. They knew she knows whom to document. The book immortalises 300 women from 60 countries, drawn from every possible profession and those who have made a difference to their own and others’ lives.
“I wanted to document history. I wanted that if the younger generation sees this book 100 years later, they would know that such women existed who suffered so much and yet made a difference to the world,” she said about the work, printed by Westland Books and released in New Delhi recently.
None at the top
For Gifford, it was a mammoth task to bring them to her pages without doing injustice to any of them. “It would have been nonsensical to say that any one of them is ‘on the top’. I chose women who were ‘significant’ in their own ways.”
The women in the book are from such diverse fields as arts, science, spirituality, films, politics, social work, commerce and industry. From Beverly Payeff-Masey, the pioneer neuron designer, to Zakia Hakki, the first and only Kurd woman judge in Baghdad, from Mother Teresa to to Madhuri Dixit, she brings them all together in 400 pages.
The book, Gifford says, would be distributed to every possible library. She adds, “Every single school in New Jersey and almost every member of Parliament in England has this book.”
Indian women
Gifford, brought up in London, traces her roots to India as she was born here, and has special feelings for the country. If she finds Sheila Dikshit “bordering on sainthood”, and seems to have chosen politics by mistake,” she feels amazed at the women in Indian villages who “are silent contributors to the Indian economy”.
The author, who is also the Founder Director of the ASHA Foundation, which encourages and supports philanthropy worldwide, says Indian contemporary writings are making a mark in most European countries. “Indians are established as ‘great storytellers’ so their writings top in most foreign countries,” she concludes, smiling.
RANA SIDDIQUI
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