Women Inspirers

I guess I am a feminist as I am inspired by the powerful women who have been and are around in this world of ours. Whoever knows me also know that I devour books like crazy but what they would not have realized would be that I am someone who read/invariably select books where the mainly women are strong and inspirational.

I take as my role model women who have carved a niche in history with their inspirational lives, one of my first role model came to me by accident you can say. Our school had organized a book fair and I was given money to pick up book by my Mom. I went through the entire collection the fair had and finally selected a book on the life of the first women doctor- Elizabeth Blackwell- an autobiography on her life. A woman who was so determined that she wanted to become a doctor she did not think it was impossible instead she strived towards it with determination and hard work in an age and society that deemed women were supposed to learn to be good daughters, wives, mothers and hostess and nothing more.

The second role model was Noor Inayat Khan the first female radio operator to enter occupied France to aid the French resistance. I don’t exactly remember where I picked up her autobiography-Spy Princess- The life of Noor Inayat Khan but this was a book on another inspirational woman who like Elizabeth was determined to do what she wanted to even in adverse conditions. Hers story was of how a demure and innocent looking women was brave and did her bit in the war against Nazi’s.

My next 2 role models has come into my life very recently, and came to me through articles I read in the paper, The Hindu to be exact. One was an article by Navin Chawla on a woman who is known world over and is an inspiration to many- Mother Theresa. Later on I realized that he has written an autobiography on her and coincidentally on the same day as I read the article was able to pick her autobiography from the book fair organized in our office J. I am still reading the book and am not even half way through it but I have able to identify the same traits of resilience and determination that I found while reading the autobiographies of Elizabeth and Noor.

They are strong individuals who are sure of what they want in life and are determined to achieve it pushing past hurdles that are thrown in their way. They dream big and are hell bent on seeing to it that it is realized. I sometimes wish that I had that kind of strength of character and big dreams to realize.

I know I told that there are 2 more roles models and I have just mentioned Mother Theresa. My next source of inspiration came to me through another article I read in The Hindu. It was an article written by her that I liked, I had already read the book written by her which won her the Booker prize during my college days (I think you must have by now guessed whom I talking about), and got me to search for other articles by her on the net- Arundhati Roy. I found her to be one of the sane voices amidst the insanity that surged the country last week- the massive protest against corruption- Jan Lokpal Bill. And I liked her article as it had the same questions and view which I myself had and would have asked. I also loved the interview she gave to CNN- IBN on the massive protest that took place last week against corruption to Sagarika Ghose. I find her brave and to strongly voice on many of the serious issues that the world is facing today and has no qualms on writing them out in strongly worded articles or speaking it out loud.