Audrey hepburn

Women's International Center Lovingly Dedicates Living Legacy Awards 2000 to "The Fairest Lady"

Audrey Hepburn-Ruston was born May 4, 1929, near Brussels, Belgium. The daughter of an English banker and a Dutch baroness, she was sent to a girl's school near London after her parents' divorce. She was vacationing with her mother in Arnhem, Holland, when WW II broke out. She spent the war years in the Nazi-occupied town, attending a local public school and receiving ballet training at the Arhem Conservatory. After the war she went to London on a ballet scholarship. Graceful, slender, and long-legged, she soon began winning modeling assignments from fashion photographers. In the early 50s she joined Felix Aylmer's acting classes and began playing bit parts in British movies. While filming "Monte Carlo Baby" on the French Riviera, in 1951, she met Colette, the French novelist, who insisted that Audrey play the lead in the forthcoming Broadway adaptation of her "Gigi."

Fragile and radiant, projecting both childlike and feminine qualities, Miss Hepburn was an ideal Colette heroine. Her success in the play led to a starring part opposite Gregory Peck in the film "Roman Holiday," for which she won an Academy Award (she would later be nominated for Oscars four more times, for "Sabrina," "The Nun's Story," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," and "Wait Until Dark.") Six weeks after the Oscar ceremonies she won the Tony Award for her performance in the Broadway play "Ondine." Later in 1954 she married Mel Ferrer, her co-star in the play. They also co-starred in King Vidor's "War and Peace," she as Natasha and he as Andrei. Ferrrer later directed her in "Green Mansions" and produced her last picture of the 60's "Wait until Dark," for which she received her fifth Oscar nomination, for her portrayal of a terrorized blind woman. But Ferrer had no part in the real highlights of her career, notably "Funny Face," " Love in the Afternoon," "The Nun's Story," " Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Charade" and "My Fair Lady." They divorced in 1968. The following year she married an Italian psychiatrist nine years her junior and made her home in Rome and later in Switzerland. She was name a Special Ambassador for UNICEF and devoted much of her free time to charity. She returned to the screen in 1976 after a nine -year absence as a luminous 'Maid Marian' in "Robin and Marian," but her subsequent film appearances were few and far between. Shortly after a highly publicized 1992 mission of mercy to famine and war-torn Somalia, she died of colon cancer and the early age of 63. She was mourned internationally as the loss of one of the favorite film actresses of all time, an icon to style, elegance, dignity, and charity. (>From Ephriam Katz, The Film Encyclopedia)

Audrey Hepburn's farewell letter to her sons were from her favorite poem, she wrote "Remember, if ever you need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm. As you get older, remember you have another hand: the first to help yourself, and second to help others."

Audrey Hepburn was a remarkable woman, an extraordinary human being, and a good and kind soul. Women's International Center is grateful to her son, Saun Ferrer for his kind assistance in helping to honor his beloved mother. We are proud to honor the legend and love of Audrey Hepburn.

Ashoka the Great

One of the greatest emperors known to Indian history, Ashoka, was the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya and the son of Bindusar. The land he ruled stretched from the Himalayas, Nepal and Kashmir to Mysore in the South. From Afghanistan in the N.E. to the banks of the River Brahmaputra in the East. In the West his territory covered Saurashtra and Junagarh.

Ashoka's Reign

Born in 294 BC as second son to Bindusar, the King of Patliputra, Ashoka was not heir apparent. After his father died, his elder brother Suman was to take over the reins of the Kingdom. But as most of the ministers found Ashoka more efficient, they helped him attain power.

Ashoka was a good administrator and at first set about restoring peace in his kingdom. This took about 3 years, after which he formally accepted the throne and was crowned King in 273 BC. During his reign, the country made progress in terms of science and technology as well as advanced in medicine and surgery. Religion was emphasized and so the people were honest and straightforward and truthful. Stealing was unheard of.

Ashoka, himself was a great philanthropist and worked day and night for the welfare of his people. He knew exactly what was going on in each part of his vast territory. He would not partake any of his meals until and unless he had fed a thousand Brahmins.

The Kalinga War

This was the first and last battle that Ashoka ever fought and serves as a watermark in his life as it changed his course forever. It was during this war that he earned the title Ashoka the Great.

Kalinga was a prosperous little kingdom lying between the river Godavari and Mahanadi, close to the Bay of Bengal. It had an infantry of 60,000 men, 10,000 horsemen and 600 elephants. Ashoka wanted to capture this fertile land, and so had it surrounded. But the brave and loyal people of Kalinga did not want to lose their independence.

A fierce battle followed, in which there were too many casualties. There were more than a lakh prisoners of war. In the midst of the battlefield, Ashoka stood with the wounded, crippled and the dead all around him. This was the consequence of his greed. A new light dawned on him, and he swore that he would never wage war again.

Ashoka's Conversion

Ashoka was initiated into Buddhism, after which his life was completely transformed. He religiously followed the principles of Buddhism - that of truth, charity, kindness, purity and goodness.

He did his bit towards the propagation of this religion by engraving it's principles on pillars throughout his kingdom. The Ashoka pillars, as they are now called, were over 40 feet high and extremely heavy. He also attempted to spread this religion to Syria, Egypt and Macedonia, and sent his son Mahendra and daughter Sangamitra to Sri Lanka for this purpose.

Ashoka opened charitable hospitals and dispensaries for the welfare of the poor. He planted trees to provide shade and opened inns for the shelter of travelers and laid out green parks and gardens to beautify his kingdom. Wells and tanks were also constructed for the benefit of his people. He believed in non-violence and so he banned the sacrifice of animals. Besides this he opened clinics for birds and animals too. His good works earned him the name of Devanamapriya Priyadarshi.

Ashoka Chakra

He died in 232 BC. After doing a great deal of good for his kingdom and the world at large. His fame has spread far and wide. To commemorate his rule and its implications the Government of India has adopted the Ashoka Chakra as its national symbol, which can be seen till today on the national flag.

Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in Kerala. Her mother, a Kerala native, was Christian; her father was a Hindu from Bengal. The marriage was unsuccessful, and Roy spent her childhood years in Aymanam with her mother. The influence of these early years permeates her writings, both thematically and structurally.

Roy's mother, who herself was a prominent social activist, founded an independent school and taught her daughter informally. This freedom from intellectual constraint allowed Roy to write, as she puts it acccording to Jon Simmons on his "Arundhati Roy Web", "from within"; the ability to follow her inner voice, rather than having a set of restrictive rules ingrained in her, has been an integral part of her accomplishments as an adult writer. She comments that "When I write, I never re-write a sentence because for me my thought and my writing are one thing. It's like breathing, I don't re-breathe a breath... Everything I have - my intellect, my experience, my feelings have been used. If someone doesn't like it, it is like saying they don't like my gall bladder. I can't do anything about it."

In addition to the style of her writing, its subject matter also reflects the cultural texture of her childhood. Of Kerala she says that "it was the only place in the world where religions coincide, there's Christianity, Hinduism, Marxism and Islam and they all live together and rub each other down...I was aware of the different cultures when I was growing up and I'm still aware of them now. When you see all the competing beliefs against the same background you realise how they all wear each other down." The deep-seated nature of Roy's activism may also be traced back to her early years, and the rural beauty of the landscape in which she spent them: "I think the kind of landscape that you grew up in, it lives in you. I don't think it's true of people who've grown up in cities so much, you may love building but I don't think you can love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth, it's a different kind of love. I'm not a very well read person but I don't imagine that that kind of gut love for the earth can be replaced by the open landscape. It's a much cleverer person who grows up in the city, savvy and much smarter in many ways. If you spent your very early childhood catching fish and just learning to be quiet, the landscape just seeps into you. Even now I go back to Kerala and it makes me want to cry if something happens to that place."

At age sixteen Roy left home, and eventually enrolled at the Delhi School of Architecture. This training, like her elementary education, proved instrumental in shaping her as a writer. In The Salon Interview, she likens the creation of a piece of literature to that of plans for a building: "In buildings, there are design motifs that occur again and again, that repeat -- patterns, curves. These motifs help us feel comfortable in a physical space. And the same works in writing, I've found. For me, the way words, punctuation and paragraphs fall on the page is important as well -- the graphic design of the language." But despite her affinity for the trade, Simmons reports, she left it after a few years to work on projects for the screen, writing first a television serial, which failed due to lack of funding, and then two screenplays, neither of which brought her great success or fulfillment. She then published a criticism of the acclaimed film "Bandit Queen"; the controversy that followed resulted in a lawsuit against her.

In the aftermath, she vacated the public sphere, focusing her energies on The God of Small Things, which was published in April 1997. About six months later it was awarded the Booker Prize; Roy is the first Indian woman ever to achieve this honor. The book has been a stunning success both in India, and internationally. Roy says that her use of the English language was not so much a conscious decision for her, as a choice imposed on her because "There are more people in India that speak English than there are in England. And the only common language that we have throughout India is English. And it's odd that English is a language that, for somebody like me, is a choice that is made for me before I'm old enough to choose. It is the only language that you can speak if you want to get a good job or you want to go to a university. All the big newspapers are in English. And then every one of us will speak at least two or three - I speak three - languages. And when we communicate - let's say I'm with a group of friends - our conversation is completely anarchic because it's in any language that you choose."

The acclaim that Roy garnered made her an instant celebrity, but the traditional trappings of literary fame were accompanied by a certain amount of notoriety due to the book's controversial treatment of delicate subject matter. Charges of anti-Communism were leveled against Roy because of her portrayal of the Communist characters; the Chief Minister of Kerala claimed that this, and not the book's literary merit, was the reason for its popularity in the West. In addition, Roy faced charges of obscenity and demands that the final chapter of the book be removed because of its sexual content. Roy attributed these hostile reactions not to the "eroticism (which is mild) but rather to the book's explicit treatment of the role of the untouchables in India... The abhorrence was thus as much political as it was moral, and proves that fifty years after Gandhi coined the term Harijan ('children of God') the Hindu caste system is still an important issue."

In the years following the publication of The God of Small Things, Roy has put her talents and status to use as an activist for several of the important issues facing India today. In September 1998 her article "The End of Imagination" appeared in The Nation as a response to the testing of nuclear weapons in India a few months earlier. The article demonstrates both a fervent appreciation for the natural beauty of her country, and a respect for the fragility of life in a world containing bombs that could destroy everything in a matter of seconds. Roy calls for those who agree with her about the evils of nuclear warfare to join her in public denunciation of it.

She has also returned to some of the political territory of The God of Small Things, speaking out against the oppression of the Dalits and appearing at a reception in Kerala to publicly declare herself an advocate of their cause. She also contributed materially, by donating the royalties from the Malayalam translation of The God of Small Things to advance Dalit literary efforts and "help Dalit writers to tell their stories to the world."

Most recently, Roy has been involved in protesting against the Narmada Dam Project. Her article "The Greater Common Good" in Frontline disparages a project that could force millions to abandon their homes in order to provide limited benefits to a limited number of people. She has demonstrated against construction of the dam both in the Narmada Valley, and globally in an effort to heighten awareness and obtain support for the cause. In January 2000 she was arrested during a protest in the Valley, and released two days later.

Roy's concern for the environment and for the people inhabiting it permeates her life; the social conscience that she exhibits may be read into the literature that she produces as a concrete embodiment of this concern.

Aristotle

Aristotle was born in Stagira in north Greece, the son of Nichomachus, the court physician to the Macedonian royal family. He was trained first in medicine, and then in 367 he was sent to Athens to study philosophy with Plato. He stayed at Plato's Academy until about 347 -- the picture at the top of this page, taken from Raphael's fresco The School of Athens, shows Aristotle and Plato (Aristotle is on the. right). Though a brilliant pupil, Aristotle opposed some of Plato's teachings, and when Plato died, Aristotle was not appointed head of the Academy. After leaving Athens, Aristotle spent some time traveling, and possibly studying biology, in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and its islands. He returned to Macedonia in 338 to tutor Alexander the Great; after Alexander conquered Athens, Aristotle returned to Athens and set up a school of his own, known as the Lyceum. After Alexander's death, Athens rebelled against Macedonian rule, and Aristotle's political situation became precarious. To avoid being put to death, he fled to the island of Euboea, where he died soon after.

Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises. The 30 that survive touch on an enormous range of philosophical problems, from biology and physics to morals to aesthetics to politics. Many, however, are thought to be "lecture notes" instead of complete, polished treatises, and a few may not be the work of Aristotle but of members of his school.

A full description of Aristotle's contributons to science and philosophy is beyond the scope of this exhibit, but a brief summary can be made: Whereas Aristotle's teacher Plato had located ultimate reality in Ideas or eternal forms, knowable only through reflection and reason, Aristotle saw ultimate reality in physical objects, knowable through experience. Objects, including organisms, were composed of a potential, their matter, and of a reality, their form; thus, a block of marble -- matter -- has the potential to assume whatever form a sculptor gives it, and a seed or embryo has the potential to grow into a living plant or animal form. In living creatures, the form was identified with the soul; plants had the lowest kinds of souls, animals had higher souls which could feel, and humans alone had rational, reasoning souls. In turn, animals could be classified by their way of life, their actions, or, most importantly, by their parts.

Though Aristotle's work in zoology was not without errors, it was the grandest biological synthesis of the time, and remained the ultimate authority for many centuries after his death. His observations on the anatomy of octopus, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and many other marine invertebrates are remarkably accurate, and could only have been made from first-hand experience with dissection. Aristotle described the embryological development of a chick; he distinguished whales and dolphins from fish; he described the chambered stomachs of ruminants and the social organization of bees; he noticed that some sharks give birth to live young -- his books on animals are filled with such observations, some of which were not confirmed until many centuries later.

Aristotle's classification of animals grouped together animals with similar characters into genera (used in a much broader sense than present-day biologists use the term) and then distinguished the species within the genera. He divided the animals into two types: those with blood, and those without blood (or at least without red blood). These distinctions correspond closely to our distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates. The blooded animals, corresponding to the vertebrates, included five genera: viviparous quadrupeds (mammals), birds, oviparous quadrupeds (reptiles and amphibians), fishes, and whales (which Aristotle did not realize were mammals). The bloodless animals were classified as cephalopods (such as the octopus); crustaceans; insects (which included the spiders, scorpions, and centipedes, in addition to what we now define as insects); shelled animals (such as most molluscs and echinoderms); and "zoophytes," or "plant-animals," which supposedly resembled plants in their form -- such as most cnidarians.

Aristotle's thoughts on earth sciences can be found in his treatise Meteorology -- the word today means the study of weather, but Aristotle used the word in a much broader sense, covering, as he put it, "all the affections we may call common to air and water, and the kinds and parts of the earth and the affections of its parts." Here he discusses the nature of the earth and the oceans. He worked out the hydrologic cycle: "Now the sun, moving as it does, sets up processes of change and becoming and decay, and by its agency the finest and sweetest water is every day carried up and is dissolved into vapour and rises to the upper region, where it is condensed again by the cold and so returns to the earth." He discusses winds, earthquakes (which he thought were caused by underground winds), thunder, lightning, rainbows, and meteors, comets, and the Milky Way (which he thought were atmospheric phenomena). His model of Earth history contains some remarkably modern-sounding ideas:

The same parts of the earth are not always moist or dry, but they change according as rivers come into existence and dry up. And so the relation of land to sea changes too and a place does not always remain land or sea throughout all time, but where there was dry land there comes to be sea, and where there is now sea, there one day comes to be dry land. But we must suppose these changes to follow some order and cycle. The principle and cause of these changes is that the interior of the earth grows and decays, like the bodies of plants and animals. . . .

But the whole vital process of the earth takes place so gradually and in periods of time which are so immense compared with the length of our life, that these changes are not observed, and before their course can be recorded from beginning to end whole nations perish and are destroyed.

Where Aristotle differed most sharply from medieval and modern thinkers was in his belief that the universe had never had a beginning and would never end; it was eternal. Change, to Aristotle, was cyclical: water, for instance, might evaporate from the sea and rain down again, and rivers might come into existence and then perish, but overall conditions would never change.

In the later Middle Ages, Aristotle's work was rediscovered and enthusiastically adopted by medieval scholars. His followers called him Ille Philosophus (The Philosopher), or "the master of them that know," and many accepted every word of his writings -- or at least every word that did not contradict the Bible -- as eternal truth. Fused and reconciled with Christian doctrine into a philosophical system known as Scholasticism, Aristotelian philosophy became the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, some scientific discoveries in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were criticized simply because they were not found in Aristotle. It is one of the ironies of the history of science that Aristotle's writings, which in many cases were based on first-hand observation, were used to impede observational science.

A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Born on 15th October 1931 at Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, specialized in Aeronautical Engineering from Madras Institute of Technology. Dr. Kalam made significant contribution as Project Director to develop India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit in July 1980 and made India an exclusive member of Space Club. He was responsible for the evolution of ISRO's launch vehicle programme, particularly the PSLV configuration. After working for two decades in ISRO and mastering launch vehicle technologies, Dr. Kalam took up the responsibility of developing Indigenous Guided Missiles at Defence Research and Development Organisation as the Chief Executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). He was responsible for the development and operationalisation of AGNI and PRITHVI Missiles and for building indigenous capability in critical technologies through networking of multiple institutions. He was the Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister and Secretary, Department of Defence Research & Development from July 1992 to December 1999. During this period he led to the weaponisation of strategic missile systems and the Pokhran-II nuclear tests in collaboration with Department of Atomic Energy, which made India a nuclear weapon State. He also gave thrust to self-reliance in defence systems by progressing multiple development tasks and mission projects such as Light Combat Aircraft.

As Chairman of Technology Information, Forecasting and Assessment Council (TIFAC) and as an eminent scientist, he led the country with the help of 500 experts to arrive at Technology Vision 2020 giving a road map for transforming India from the present developing status to a developed nation. Dr. Kalam has served as the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India, in the rank of Cabinet Minister, from November 1999 to November 2001 and was responsible for evolving policies, strategies and missions for many development applications. Dr. Kalam was also the Chairman, Ex-officio, of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C) and piloted India Millennium Mission 2020.

Dr. Kalam took up academic pursuit as Professor, Technology & Societal Transformation at Anna University, Chennai from November 2001 and was involved in teaching and research tasks. Above all he took up a mission to ignite the young minds for national development by meeting high school students across the country.

In his literary pursuit four of Dr. Kalam's books - "Wings of Fire", "India 2020 - A Vision for the New Millennium", "My journey" and "Ignited Minds - Unleashing the power within India" have become household names in India and among the Indian nationals abroad. These books have been translated in many Indian languages.

Dr. Kalam is one of the most distinguished scientists of India with the unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from 30 universities and institutions. He has been awarded the coveted civilian awards - Padma Bhushan (1981) and Padma Vibhushan (1990) and the highest civilian award Bharat Ratna (1997). He is a recipient of several other awards and Fellow of many professional institutions.

Dr. Kalam became the 11th President of India on 25th July 2002. His focus is on transforming India into a developed nation by 2020.

Anthony quinn

Anthony Quinn, flamboyant, earthy, intensely masculine and larger than life, will probably be best remembered as Zorba the Greek, the character he played in the highly successful film in 1964 and, 20 years later, on the stage on Broadway.

But, in all, he was in more than 150 films, and though at first he was usually cast as any variation of uncouth ruffian, he branched out considerably, and even played the Pope in Shoes of the Fisherman.

He won Oscars as best supporting actor in Viva Zapata in 1952 and as the painter Paul Gauguin in Lust for Life four years later.

Anthony Quinn was born in Mexico to an Irish father and Mexican mother. The family moved to Los Angeles when he was a small boy, though it was not until the 1940s that he became a naturalised US citizen.

Though he began as a stage actor, he started film work in 1936. He appeared in Blood and Sand in 1941, and was Chief Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On, about General Custer, in the same year.

Soon after Viva Zapata came Fellini's La Strada, which brought him an award at the Venice Film Festival.

A spell on Broadway, playing Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire, gave Quinn's film career a considerable boost. He earned parts in The Guns of Navarone and Lawrence of Arabia, and then came Zorba the Greek.

His later films included The Secret of Santa Vittoria and The Greek Tycoon, in which he played a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis.

The critics never seemed to know quite what to make of Quinn. He could give sensitive dramatic performances, but too often he seemed to be simply Quinn playing Quinn.

His personal life was almost as flamboyant as many of his film parts. He was married first to the adopted daughter of Cecil B. de Mille though his father-in-law did nothing to help his career.

Oddly enough, at the 1987 Golden Globe Awards he received the Cecil B. De Mille Award for career achievement. His second marriage lasted more than 20 years, but during it he admitted relationships with a number of other women, one of whom bore him two children.

His first child drowned, at the age of three, in W.C. Fields's swimming pool.

In all, Anthony Quinn fathered thirteen children from his marriages and extra-marital relationships.

Away from acting, Quinn was a dedicated and highly successful sculptor and painter. His work sold throughout the world for high prices. He once said that without art there was no reason for living.

Annie Besant

(1847 - 1933)

Besant was a British social reformer, campaigner for women's rights and a supporter of Indian nationalism.

Annie Woods was born in London on 1 October 1847. She had an unhappy childhood, undoubtedly partly due to her father's death when she was five. Annie's mother persuaded her friend Ellen Marryat, sister of the writer Frederick Marryat, to take responsibility for her daughter and Ellen ensured that Annie received a good education.

In 1867 Annie married Frank Besant, a clergymen, and they had two children. However, Annie's increasingly anti-religious views led to a legal separation in 1873. Besant became a member of the National Secular Society, which preached 'free thought', and also of the Fabian Society, the noted socialist organisation.

In the 1870s, Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh edited the weekly National Reformer, which advocated advanced ideas for the time on topics such as trade unions, national education, womens' right to vote, and birth control. For their pamphlet on birth control the pair were brought to trial for obscenity, but were subsequently acquitted.

Besant supported a number of workers' demonstrations for better working conditions. In 1888 she helped organise a strike of the female workers at the Bryant and May match factory in east London. The women complained of starvation wages and the terrible effects on their health of phosphorus fumes in the factory. The strike eventually led to their bosses significantly improving their working situation.

Social and political reform seems not to have satisfied Besant's hunger for some all-embracing truth to replace the religion of her youth. She became interested in Theosophy, a religious movement founded in 1875 and based on Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation. As a member and later leader of the Theosophical Society, Besant helped to spread Theosophical beliefs around the world, notably in India.

Besant first visited India in 1893 and later settled there, becoming involved in the Indian nationalist movement. In 1916 she established the Indian Home Rule League, of which she became president. She was also a leading member of the Indian National Congress.

In the late 1920s Besant travelled to the United States with her protégé and adopted son Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom she claimed was the new Messiah and incarnation of Buddha. Krishnamurti rejected these claims in 1929.

Besant died in India on 20 September 1933.