hello friends,
it is a pride moment for all of us as one of our list members
has been featured in the august issue of savy magzine along with celebrity
women of our time.
please find below the entire article.
LEADING LADIES
Freedom
yatra
Taking off from Rabindranath Tagore'-s poem 'Where The Mind Is Without
Fear', Sumita Chakraborty picks the ladies who best symbolise these classic
verses.
Burma's democracy icon and Nobel peace prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, has
been under house arrest for the past 17 years. But she refuses to be cowed
down and continues the fight for freedom from dictatorship. Incidentally,
this brave lady was given an offer of freedom this year if she left the
country for good, but she declined it by saying, "Let my countrymen be free
first,"
WHERE the mind is without fear and the head is held high.
War, riots, deadly plague or mayhem, journalist Barkha Dutt has always been
in the thick of things. "In my line of work, there is no question of being
scared. Kargil was India's first televised war and I think it was much later
that we realized the risks we were taking. Likewise, in other calamities, in
the thick of things, it is more about keeping deadlines. In the line of
duty, there is no question of bowing down to fear," says she. More power to
her!
Firebrand writer and activist Arundhati Roy needs no introduction. Sassy,
independent and controversy prone, she is the first non-expatriate Indian
author and the first Indian woman to win the Booker prize. But true
knowledge, she believes, comes from every day life itself. Says she,
"Whether I write, study architecture, teach aerobics or fight for justice, I
am still imparting important lessons in life and that is where true
knowledge triumphs."
WHERE KNOWLEDGE IS FREE
Black is not Mumbai-based solicitor Kanchan Pamnani's colour; and why should
it be? Though visually disabled, her constant thirst for knowledge gives her
life a kaleidoscopic glow.
Today, Kanchan has her own independent practice with work related to
corporate, testamentary, and property law. She has received her LLM from
Mumbai and has passed the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Test from England.
Assisted by staff, electronic and non-electronic devices and family, Kanchan
has adapted to her environment and tailored it to her requirements -
shocking many at first and then keeping them impressed. Says she, "For me,
knowledge is power; and the fight for accessible knowledge has been a
struggle against tyranny and obsolescence, and a struggle for freedom."
As for now, the forever smiling Kanchan, using her knowledge, grit and
determination, has achieved much but insists that she still has "many miles
to go..."
From being born into a family of modest means in an Italian village, Sonia
Gandhi has bagged a place in history by becoming the President of India's
century-old Congress party. She is also the third woman of foreign origin to
hold such a prestigious post, worldwide. Says she, "I decided that it would
be cowardice to sit back and stay at home. I owed it to the family that I
married into to do whatever I could for the Congress," This woman of
substance has proved that dedication and hard work can crumble walls and
make the world a global village.
WHERE the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic
walls
From becoming the first Indian actor to be a member of the jury at the
Cannes Film Festival, to being listed in Time' magazine among the '100
Most Influential People in the World Today', Aishwarya Rai can be truly
called India's first global beauty. Says she, "Not just India, I want to
have a repertoire of good work globally." And she is doing just that; after
being seen in films like 'Mistress of Spice' and 'Provoked', she is
currently filming Hollywood films like The Last Legion' opposite Colin Firth
and Sir Ben Kingsley and 'Chaos' with Meryl Streep, amongst others.
Incidentally, Aishwarya has also been immortalized in wax at the world
famous Madame Tussaud's wax museum in London.
For 19 years, social activist Medha Patkar has led the struggle for the
people affected by the controversial Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada
River. Not daunted by failures, she has also formed the National Alliance of
People's Movements with other activists against corruption. Says Medha, "We
believe in the truth in our issues and to uphold it,
we are willing to fight. Losing and winning is the ultimate end of a
process, which needs to be carried on with all values, sincerity, and
commitment, which is ultimately the strength of people's movements."
WHERE words come out from the depth of truth...
Actor Preity Zinta may be called 'Ms Bubbly' but she's always been known to
fight tooth and nail for the truth. Not only did she have the guts to stand
up strong and tail against the underworld in her deposition against them,
she also earned the compliment of being called "the only man of the
industry" by the police commissioner of Mumbai. But this feisty actor hasn't
stopped just there. Whether it is helping clean Mumbai city with beau Ness
Wadia, or taking on a tabloid on grounds of "defamation" for airing her name
in the infamous Salman Khan telephone tapes, she has continuously stood her
ground and
"pursued truth and justice relentlessly."
On the night of December 2, 1984, a massive poisonous gas leak from a Union
Carbide pesticide factory killed 8,000 people in Bhopal. It was termed as
the Hiroshima of the chemical industry'. Over the course of 20 years, the
infamous disaster has caused an estimated 20,000 deaths, countless birth
defects, and a litany of other serious health problems. Meet Rashida Bee, a
Bhopal Gas tragedy survivor and the winner of the prestigious Goldman
Environment Award, who has been fighting for justice for the last 20 years.
She has held hunger strikes, rallies and protests, and now she walks around
with a broom signaling "sweeping changes" to end environmental hazards all
over the world. "I will continue to fight such environmental crimes until 1
die," she says determinedly.
WHERE tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Magsaysay Award winner Aruna Roy quit her lucrative IAS job to work for the
upliftment of the rural people in Rajasthan and later, kick-started the
'Mazdoor
Kisan Shakti Sanghatan', a movement for the empowerment of disadvantaged
people. Besides this, she has also played a major role in the national
campaign for the right to information and was instrumental in the enactment
of Rajasthan's 'Right to Information' bill. Says she, "We can't all be
Gandhi or Mao. We have to work in a limited area. However, we have to
understand how to relate our small work with big issues and strive hard to
make it a success,"
Super cop, reformer, author, educator... Yes, Kiran Bedi indeed wears many
hats. And that's because she believes, life is a continuous learning
process. Says she, "I teach people to be fearless. I tell them, nothing is
permanent with you. What is permanent with you is your attitude to life.
That is what is within your control, so break out of monotony and do
something substantial in life."
WHERE the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit
Meet Pune-based Bharati Mamani, who after doing tier post graduation in
psychology, left everything to "provide a human touch to strife-torn
Kashmiri orphans who had seen more corpses than toys." Says Bharti, "I
didn't want the fire in my belly to die in the pursuit of material things.
That is why my like-minded colleague Adik Kadam and I started 'Borderless
World', wherein we came to Kashmir to rehabilitate orphans. Our orphanage,
Basera-e-Tabassum (BeT), houses traumatized orphans of civilians, locals,
military men, terrorists et al. In the beginning, being non-Kashmiris, we
faced problems ranging from local clerics who issued fatwas, to terrorist
threats. But that soon settled down. Now we plan to start other such
orphanages in border areas which have children as
major casualties." Kudos to them!
Thumbing her nose at her detractors, Delhi's Chief Minister Sheila Dixit has
always fought and won elections entirely on her performance ratings. This
iron lady has also very ably proved that intelligent thought and hard work
can propel progress forward. Says she, "We have the responsibility and we
have to perform. We are treating 2010 as the benchmark year for bringing our
infrastructure to world-class levels and we will do so successfully,"
WHERE the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and
action....
Slight in stature and soft-spoken, Mukhtaran Mai hardly looks the part of an
activist. But this gutsy 30-year-old rape victim has taken Pakistani society
to task for the horror she experienced after she was brutally gang-raped on
the orders of a local panchayat. "The unbelievable pain I experienced is
hard to put into words. But I hold on to my pain, put myself in the public
no matter what they say about my motives. I just don't want people to
forget." Today, Mukhtaran travels all over the world narrating her plight,
hoping more and more people will come forward to stop antiquated cruel
customs against women.
..
....Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
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