NEW YORK CITY (TIP): It’s not very often that a biographer and the subject of the biography come live, together at a historic home that has had former presidents and history’s iconic powerhouses converge at the beautiful venue.
Some of the city’s greatest minds and movers and shakers came together on May 23 at the stately home of humanitarian and social innovator Meera Gandhi’s historic home which once belonged to the longest serving first lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt. New York city’s high powered and the philanthropic were there to welcome Zerbanoo Gifford, UK based human rights campaigner, women’s champion, former politician, author and founder of the path-breaking ASHA Centre in the Forest of Dean in England.
Accompanying Zerbanoo was New Zealand based accomplished journalist and editor Farida Master who has authored the biography `Zerbanoo Gifford-An Uncensored Life’, published by HarperCollins.
The biography which was launched with great fanfare in at the Times Litfest in India and later in New Zealand and Singapore has been celebrated all over the US from the West to the East coast in the last 21 days.
In an interesting social experiment, Zerbanoo and Farida reached out to diverse audiences as they shared anecdotes from the pages of Zerbanoo’s life that found an interconnectedness with different cross-sections of society in Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Washington DC, Philadelphia and New York.
The idea behind it is to exchange stories that empowers people, builds communities and hope. From brilliant minds at NASA, Goddard Space Centre in DC to academics at George Washington University, Turkish women in Houston, the Zoroastrian communities in LA, Chicago and New Jersey, high profile social entrepreneurs in Philadelphia and the literary circle in New York, everyone was captivated as the central character of the book in her indomitable way came alive to redefine success and pushed people to stand up and make a difference even when the going gets really tough.
There was no better way to end the whirlwind book tour than to celebrate it with a clink of champagne glasses at the home of the lady behind the Giving Back Foundation, Meera Gandhi whose testimonial along with Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate, on the paperback reads as: “A compelling biography of a renowned human rights campaigner at the heart of the women’s movement. Zerbanoo has helped to empower women to take their rightful place in the international arena. Her story reads as a modern tale of shakti -power.”