Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw

#49/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is a pioneer of the biotechnology industry in India and the founder of the country’s leading biotechnology enterprise, Biocon. Named among TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is recognized as a thought leader who has made her country proud by building a globally recognized biopharmaceutical enterprise that is committed to innovation and affordability in delivering best-in-class therapeutics to patients across the globe. As a global influencer, she is ranked among ‘World's 25 Most Influential People in Biopharma’ by Fierce Biotech, Forbes magazine’s ‘100 Most Powerful Women’ and Fortune’s ‘Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Asia-Pacific.’ More recently, she was featured in ‘The Worldview 100 List’ of the most influential visionaries by Scientific American magazine and named among the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine. She was ranked second among the 100 Most Influential People in the field of medicine in the ‘Global Medicine Maker Power List 2015’ published by a top UK-based medical publication.

Kiran was born to Gujarati parents in Bangalore, India. She went to school at Bangalore's Bishop Cotton Girl's High School, graduating in 1968. She then attended Mount Carmel College, Bangalore, a women's college offering pre-university courses as an affiliate of Bangalore University. She studied biology and zoology, graduating from Bangalore University with a bachelor's degree in Zoology in 1973. Kiran hoped to go to medical school, but did not obtain a scholarship. Her father, Rasendra Mazumdar, was the head brewmaster at United Breweries. He suggested that she study fermentation science, and train to be a brewmaster, a very non-traditional field for a woman. She went to Federation University (Formerly known as University of Ballarat) in Australia to study Malting and Brewing. In 1974 she was the only woman enrolled in the brewing course, and the top of her class. She earned the degree of master brewer in 1975. She then worked as a trainee brewer in Carlton and United Breweries, Melbourne and as a trainee maltster at Barrett Brothers and Burston, Australia. She also worked for some time as a technical consultant at Jupiter Breweries Limited, Calcutta and as a technical manager at Standard Maltings Corporation, Baroda between 1975 and 1977. However, when she investigated the possibility of further work in Bangalore or Delhi, she was told that she would not be hired as a master brewer in India because "It's a man's work." She began to look abroad, and was offered a position in Scotland.

Before Kiran could move, she met Leslie Auchincloss, founder of Biocon Biochemicals Limited, of Cork, Ireland. Auchincloss's company produced enzymes for use in the brewing, food-packaging and textile industries. Auchincloss was looking for an Indian entrepreneur to help establish an Indian subsidiary. Kiran agreed to undertake the job on the condition that if she did not wish to continue after six months she would be guaranteed a brewmaster's position comparable to the one she was giving up. 

After a brief period as a trainee manager at Biocon Biochemicals Limited, of Cork, Ireland, to learn more about the business, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw returned to India. She started Biocon India in 1978 in the garage of her rented house in Bengaluru with a seed capital of Rs. 10,000. Although it was a joint venture, Indian laws restricted foreign ownership to 30% of the company. The remaining 70% belonged to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.

Initially, she faced credibility challenges because of her youth, gender and her untested business model. Funding was a problem: no bank wanted to lend to her, and some requested that her father be a guarantor. A chance meeting with a banker at a social event finally enabled her to get her first financial backing. She also found it difficult to recruit people to work for her start-up. Her first employee was a retired garage mechanic. Her first factory was in a nearby 3,000-square-foot shed. The most complicated piece of equipment in her lab at that time was a spectrophotometer. As well, she faced the technological challenges associated with trying to build a biotech business in a country with a shaky infrastructure. Uninterrupted power, superior quality water, sterile labs, imported research equipment, and workers with advanced scientific skills were not easily available in India at the time. The company's initial projects were the extraction of papain (an enzyme from papaya used to tenderize meat) and isinglass (obtained from tropical catfish and used to clarify beer). Within a year of its inception, Biocon India was able to manufacture enzymes and to export them to the US and Europe, the first Indian company to do so. At the end of her first year, Kiran used her earnings to buy a 20-acre property, dreaming of future expansion.

Kiran spearheaded Biocon's evolution from an industrial enzymes manufacturing company to a fully integrated bio-pharmaceutical company with a well-balanced business portfolio of products and a research focus on diabetes, oncology and auto-immune diseases. She also established two subsidiaries: Syngene (1994) which provides early research and development support services on a contract basis and Clinigene (2000) which focuses on clinical research trials and the development of both generic and new medicines. Clinigene was later merged with Syngene. Syngene was listed on BSE/NSE in 2015 and has a current market cap of US$1.15 billion.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is responsible for establishing Biocon's direction. As early as 1984, she began to develop a research and development team at Biocon, focusing on discovery of novel enzymes and on development of novel techniques for solid substrate fermentation technology. The company's first major expansion came in 1987, when Narayanan Vaghul of ICICI Ventures (Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India) supported creation of a venture capital fund of US$250,000. The money enabled Biocon to expand its research and development efforts. They built a new plant featuring proprietary solid substrate fermentation technology based on a semi-automated tray culture process, inspired by Japanese techniques. In 1989, Biocon became the first Indian biotech company to receive US funding for proprietary technologies. Thereafter, in 1990, Kiran incorporated Biocon Biopharmaceuticals Private Limited (BBLP) to manufacture and market a select range of biotherapeutics in a joint venture with the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology.

Biocon Biochemicals of Ireland was acquired from Leslie Auchincloss by Unilever in 1989. The partnership with Unilever helped Biocon to establish global best practices and quality systems. In 1997, Unilever sold its specialty chemicals division, including Biocon, to Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). In 1998, Kiran Mazumdar's fiancée, Scotsman John Shaw, personally raised $2 million to purchase the outstanding Biocon shares from ICI. The couple married in 1998, whereupon she became known as Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. John Shaw left his position as chairman at Madura Coats to join Biocon. He became Biocon’s vice chairman in 2001.

There is reverence in her voice when she talks about her father, whose ashes rest under the almond tree outside her office. She describes his role in her success. At a time when fathers did not take their daughters' intellect very seriously, Mazumdar-Shaw says hers told her: "I want you to use your knowledge to do something meaningful." While the 25-year-old Mazumdar-Shaw was setting up Biocon, her friends were getting married. It was her father who encouraged her to stay the course. "When I started the company, my father was so excited for me," she says, her eyes moistening. Her father taught her that people were the most valuable asset in business. She says: "My dad always said, 'Treat them with respect. Everyone has something to contribute.'" Her ground-level office on Biocon's leafy campus has a relaxed, informal feel, and her door is always open. Her staff is fiercely protective of her. Her vision for the company has evolved from the goal of improving India's scientific record to the dream of "a made-in-India novel drug". When she talks about Biocon's plans to take insulins global and move from cancer care to cancer cure, her enthusiasm seems almost childlike. Behind many dreams that come true, there is a choice that many might quail at. "I got married only at 44," says Mazumdar-Shaw. "My work was so important that I didn't even think about having a family. I miss having a child. But that's a sacrifice." She says she is happy with all that she has achieved. "I have made discoveries about myself, and have learnt to get ordinary people to do extraordinary things," she adds.

Kiran's belief in "affordable innovation" has been a driving philosophy behind Biocon's expansion. Inspired by the need for affordable drugs in less-wealthy countries, she has looked for opportunities to develop cost-effective techniques and lower-cost alternatives. She has also proposed that drug companies be cost-sensitive in marketing to developing countries, so that people can afford the drugs they need, particularly chronic therapies. She noticed the market potential for statins (cholesterol fighting drugs) early on. When the patent of the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin expired in 2001, Biocon got involved in its development. Then they expanded to other forms of statins. Part of her strategy was to enter into long-term supply contracts, establishing a dependable market base over time. Statins soon accounted for over 50 per cent of the company's revenue. The company’s revenue went up from Rs. 70 crore in 1998, to Rs. 500 crore in 2004 when it went public. In 2004, after seeking the advice of Narayana Murthy, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw decided to list Biocon on the stock market. Her intent was to raise capital to further develop Biocon's research programs. Biocon was the first biotechnology company in India to issue an IPO. Biocon's IPO was oversubscribed 33 times and its first day at the bourses closed with a market value of $1.11 billion, making Biocon only the second Indian company to cross the $1-billion mark on the first day of listing.

Biocon continues to expand into new areas. Yeast expression platforms offer a desirable alternative to mammalian cell cultures for the genetic manipulation of cells for use in a variety of drug treatments. Unicellular methylotrophic yeasts such as Pichia pastoris are used in the production of vaccines, antibody fragments, hormones, cytokines, matrix proteins, and biosimilars. Biocon's major areas of research now include cancer, diabetes, and other auto-immune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Because of the high percentage of people in India who chew betel or tobacco, India accounts for eighty-six per cent of oral cancer in the world, known locally as "cancer cheek". Diabetes is prevalent, and people who do not wear shoes are at risk to have a minor scrape or injury develop into gangrene, or "diabetes foot". Biocon is also working on drugs to treat psoriasis, a skin pigment disease which can result in social ostracization. Bio-pharmaceuticals developed include Pichia-derived recombinant human insulin and insulin analogs for diabetes, an Anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody for head and neck cancer, and a biologic for psoriasis. Biocon is Asia's largest insulin producer, and has the largest perfusion-based antibody production facilities. As of 2014, Biocon directed about 10% of its revenue back into research and development, a much higher proportion than most Indian pharmacological companies. Biocon has filed at least 950 patent applications as a result of its research activity. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has actively engaged in acquisitions, partnerships and in-licensing within the pharmaceuticals and bio-pharmaceutical area, entering into more than 2,200 high-value R&D licensing and other deals between 2005 and 2010.

Her rich contributions to research, innovation and affordable healthcare have been recognized by several national and international awards. The U.S.-based Chemical Heritage Foundation has conferred her with the ‘2014 Othmer Gold Medal’ and the Germany-based Kiel Institute for the World Economy has awarded her its coveted ‘2014 Global Economy Prize’ for Business. She has received two of India's highest civilian honours, the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005). Other prominent awards include, Ernst & Young Best Entrepreneur: Healthcare & Life Sciences Award (2002), The Economic Times Business Woman of the Year Award (2004) and Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2009).

Among the influences in her life, she counts Vaghul, the banker who thought differently; Raghunath Mashelkar, promoter of science and technology in India; and cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty, architect of the world's cheapest health insurance scheme.

Her work in the biotechnology sector has earned her numerous national awards as well, including the Padma Shri (1989) and the Padma Bhushan (2005) from the government of India. She was given the Economic Times Award for 'Businesswoman of the Year' in 2004. At the Pharmaleaders Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit she was named "Global Indian Woman of the Year" (2012); she also received the Express Pharmaceutical Leadership Summit Award for "Dynamic Entrepreneur" in 2009. The Indian Merchants' Chamber Diamond Jubilee Endowment Trust's Eminent Businessperson of the Year Award was presented to Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw in 2006 by the Governor of Maharashtra, S. M. Krishna. She also has received the Indian Chamber of Commerce Lifetime Achievement Award (2005), the 'Corporate Leadership Award' by the American India Foundation (2005) and the Karnataka Rajyotsava Award (2002).

Kiran received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, Ballarat University in 2004, in recognition of her contributions to biotechnology. She has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Abertay, Dundee, UK (2007), the University of Glasgow, UK (2008), Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK (2008) and University College Cork, Ireland (2012). She received an honorary doctorate from Davangere University, India, at its first convocation, July 2013, in recognition of her contribution in the field of biotechnology.

Kiran also holds key positions in various industry, educational, government and professional bodies. She is Non-Executive Chairperson of the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE), a not-for-profit pan-India forum representing the Indian biotechnology sector. She is a founder member of Karnataka's Vision Group on Biotechnology, which she currently chairs. She serves as a member of the Governing Body of the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission and has previously served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the U.S. Pharmacopeia Convention. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is Chairperson of the Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, and has recently been appointed as Global Alumni Ambassador for Australia by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia. She is also on the board of advisors for The National Society of High School Scholars, US and is a founder member of the Society for the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Bangalore. She serves as Independent Member of the Board of Infosys Ltd and features on the Global Advisory Committee for the Women and the Green Economy Campaign (WAGE)™ initiative. She is also the Honorary Consul of Ireland in Bangalore.

Kiran’s commitment to affordable healthcare extends beyond business. Her philanthropic initiatives are directed at making a difference to the lives of the marginalized communities. In 2004, Mazumdar-Shaw started a corporate social responsibility wing at Biocon, the Biocon Foundation. The Foundation focuses on the areas of health, education and infrastructure, especially in rural areas of Karnataka which lack healthcare facilities. Through Biocon Foundation’s primary healthcare centres, telemedicine initiatives, health awareness programs, public health and sanitation initiatives and preventive screenings for oral and cervical cancer, she is making an enduring impact on society. She has also established the 1,400-bed Mazumdar-Shaw Cancer Center in Bangalore to deliver affordable world-class cancer care services to patients irrespective of socio-economic status. She has also set up the Mazumdar-Shaw Center for Translational Research, a non-profit research institute dedicated to developing scientific breakthroughs for treating a wide range of human diseases. Her philanthropic efforts have led her to be featured in the Forbes’ List of ‘Heroes of Philanthropy’. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw is also the second Indian to join the Giving Pledge global initiative created by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates that encourages billionaires to give the majority of their wealth to philanthropic causes.

Kiran dislikes the term "philanthropy", believing that it often provides temporary fixes rather than changing underlying conditions. She prefers the term "compassionate capitalist", believing that properly applied business models can provide an ongoing foundation for sustainable social progress. "Innovation and commerce are as powerful tools for creating social progress as they are for driving technological advancement... when they are put to use for social progress, the implementation is a lot cheaper, a lot more people benefit, and the effect is more lasting." In 2015, she joined The Giving Pledge, promising that at least half of her wealth will be dedicated to philanthropy.

If Kiran would have succeeded at becoming a brewmaster, Biocon would probably not exist. But in the 1970s, brewing was a male-dominated industry, and she could not get a job. She says: "The words were: 'You're a woman. It is difficult for a woman to deal with labour unions. You are high-risk. Can you command the respect of your male colleagues?'" Today, things have changed drastically. "It is interesting to see how the people who said, 'I have 15 minutes for you' are in awe of me.'" Kiran, who is one of India's richest women, says she is a self-taught entrepreneur. It takes originality and a strong will for a woman to first study brewing, and then to turn to a nascent industry when hurdles in the brewery business prove insurmountable. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, it seems, has plenty of both. As someone who made unconventional choices - brewmaster, biotechnology pioneer, to personal life choices (she married at 44) - she says she admires people who dare to do things differently.

Source: Wikipedia and Google search

Amrita Sher-Gil

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Amrita Sher-Gil and her self portrait

One of the most promising Indian artists of the pre-colonial era; youngest ever and the only Asian to be elected as Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris, Amrita Sher-Gil was a renowned Indian painter. She was one of the most charismatic and promising Indian artists of the pre-colonial era. Most of her paintings reflect vividly her love for the country and more importantly her response to the life of its people.

Sometimes known as India’s Frida Kahlo, Amrita Sher-Gil was born on 30 January, 1913 in Budapest, Hungary, to Umrao Singh Sher-Gil Majithia, a Sikh aristocrat and a scholar in Sanskrit and Persian, and Marie Antoniette Gottesmann, a Hungarian-Jewish opera singer. Her mother came to India as a companion of Princess Bamba Sutherland the granddaughter of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Amrita was the elder of two daughters born. She spent most of early childhood in Budapest. She was the niece of Indologist Ervin Baktay who guided her by critiquing her work and gave her an academic foundation to grow on. He also instructed her to use servants as models. The memories of these models would eventually lead to her return to India. In 1921, her family moved to Summer Hill, Shimla in India, and soon began learning piano and violin, and by age nine she along with her younger sister, Indira, were giving concerts and acting in plays at Shimla’s Gaiety Theatre at Mall Road, Shimla. Though she was already painting since the age of five she formally started learning painting at age eight. In 1923, Marie came to know an Italian sculptor, who was living at Shimla at the time. In 1924, when he returned to Italy, she too moved there along with Amrita and got her enrolled at Santa Annunziata, an art school at Florence. Though Amrita didn’t stay at this school for long, and returned to India in 1924, it was here that she was exposed to works of Italian masters.

At sixteen, Amrita sailed to Europe with her mother to train as a painter at Paris, first at the Grande Chaumiere under Pierre Vaillant and Lucien Simon and later at École des Beaux-Arts (1930–34). She drew inspiration from European painters such as Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin while coming under the influence of her teacher Lucien Simon and the company of artist friends and lovers like Boris Tazlitsky. Her early paintings display a significant influence of the Western modes of painting, especially as practiced in the Bohemian circles of Paris in the early 1930s. In 1932, she made her first important work, ‘Young Girls’, which led to her election as an Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris in 1933, making her the youngest ever and the only Asian to have received this recognition.

In 1934, while in Europe she began to be haunted by an intense longing to return to India, feeling in some strange way that there lay her destiny as a painter. She began a quest for the rediscovery of the traditions of Indian art which was to continue till her death. In May 1935, in Shimla, Amrita met the English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, then working as Assistant Editor and leader writer for the Calcutta Statesman. Both Malcolm and Amrita stayed at the family home at Summer Hill, Shimla and a short intense affair took place during which she painted a casual portrait of her new lover. The painting now rests with the National Gallery in New Delhi. By September 1935, Amrita was seeing Muggeridge off as he travelled back to England for new employment, the parting timely and no doubt of relief to them both. She left for travel herself in 1936 at the behest of an art collector and critic, Karl Khandalavala, who encouraged her to pursue her passion for discovering her Indian roots. She was greatly impressed and influenced by the Mughal and Pahari schools of painting and the cave paintings at Ajanta.

Later in 1937, she toured South India and produced the famous South Indian trilogy of paintings ‘Bride’s Toilet’, ‘Brahmacharis’, and ‘South Indian Villagers Going to Market’ following her visit to the Ajanta caves, when she made a conscious attempt to return to classical Indian art. These paintings reveal her passionate sense of colour and an equally passionate empathy for her Indian subjects, who are often depicted in their poverty and despair. Amrita showed a strong empathy and deep engagement for her Indian subjects and depicted the poverty which blighted much of the country. These three works especially are believed to be a few of her seminal works which convey her compassion for the underprivileged. Influenced by her surroundings and experiences, her paintings are carved out with eloquent symbols of the human condition, and it is clear that her artistic mission was to express the lives of Indian people through her vivid paintings. This marked a significant point in her artistic development where she engaged with the rhythms of rural life in India, appropriating a way of life which was antithetical to her own. 

By 1939, she was living a bohemian life, which her parents did not approve of. They wanted her to settle down and lead a normal family life. There was no dearth of suitors, but understanding her own nature, Amrita married her maternal cousin Victor Egan in 1938, who accepted her as she was. She moved with him to India to stay at her paternal family’s home in Saraya in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. Saraya inspired her to break her umbilical connection with the West. While in Saraya she wrote to a friend thus: "I can only paint in India. Europe belongs to Picasso, Matisse, Braque.... India belongs only to me". Her stay in India marks the beginning of a new phase in her artistic development, one that was distinct from the European phase of the interwar years when her work showed an engagement with the works of Hungarian painters, especially the Nagybanya school of painting. Thus began her second phase of painting which equals in its impact on Indian art with the likes of Rabindranath Tagore and Jamini Roy of the Bengal school of art. The ‘Calcutta Group’ of artists, which transformed the Indian art scene in a big way, was to start only in 1943, and the ‘Progressive Artist’s Group’, with Francis Newton Souza, Ara, Bakre, Gade, M. F. Husain and S. H. Raza among its founders, lay further ahead in 1948. Amrita’s art was strongly influenced by the paintings of the two Tagores, Rabindranath and Abanindranath, who were the pioneers of the Bengal School of painting. Her portraits of women resemble works by Rabindranath while the use of ‘chiaroscuro’ and bright colours reflect the influence of Abanindranath.

It was during her stay at Saraya that she painted the ‘Village Scene’, ‘In the Ladies’ Enclosure’ and ‘Siesta’, all of which portray the leisurely rhythms of life in rural India. ‘Siesta’ and ‘In the Ladies’ Enclosure’ reflect her experimentation with the miniature school of painting while ‘Village Scene’ reflects influences of the Pahari school of painting. Although acclaimed by art critics, Karl Khandalavala in Bombay and Charles Fabri in Lahore, as the greatest painter of the century, Amrita’s paintings found few buyers during her time. She travelled across India with her paintings but the Nawab Salar Jung of Hyderabad returned them and the Maharaja of Mysore chose Ravi Varma’s paintings over hers. While the Bengal school was trying to generally have a romantic revival of India’s cultural heritage and the Bombay school was imitating the West, Amrita dared to break away from the rut and paint the real India in body and soul.

Despite being from a family that was closely tied to the British Raj, Amrita herself was a Congress sympathiser. She was attracted to the poor, distressed and the deprived and her paintings of Indian villagers and women are a meditative reflection of their condition. She was also attracted by Gandhi’s philosophy and lifestyle. Nehru was charmed by her beauty and talent and when he went to Gorakhpur in October 1940, he visited her at Saraya. Her paintings were at one stage even considered for use in the Congress propaganda for village reconstruction.

In September 1941, Victor and Amrita moved to Lahore, then in undivided India and a major cultural and artistic centre. She lived and painted at 23 Ganga Ram Mansions, The Mall, Lahore where her studio was on the top floor of the townhouse she inhabited. Amrita was known for her many affairs with both men and women and many of the latter she also painted. Her work ‘Two Women’ is thought to be a painting of herself and her lover Marie Louise. In 1941, just days before the opening of her first major solo show in Lahore, she became seriously ill and slipped into a coma. She later died around midnight on 6 December, 1941, leaving behind a large volume of work. The reason for her death has never been ascertained. A failed abortion and subsequent peritonitis have been suggested as possible causes for her death. Her mother accused her doctor husband Victor of having murdered her. However, the day after her death Britain declared war on Hungary and Victor was sent to jail as a national enemy. She was cremated on 7 December, 1941 at Lahore. Amrita Sher-Gil entered India’s cultural horizon like a shooting star, blazing a trail of gorgeous radiance, and vanished before the spectacle could be celebrated. As she was in life, so she was in death: an enigma.

Although her life was short-lived, Amrita has left a compelling body of work behind, and these works have established her as one of the foremost female artists of the century. Her art has influenced generations of Indian artists from Sayed Haider Raza to Arpita Singh and her depiction of the plight of women has made her art a beacon for women at large both in India and abroad. The Government of India has declared her works as National Art Treasures, and most of them are housed in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi. A postage stamp depicting her painting ‘Hill Women’ was released in 1978 by India Post and the Amrita Sher-Gill Marg is a road in Lutyens’ Delhi named after her. In 2006, her painting ‘Village Scene’ sold for Rs. 6.9 crores at an auction in New Delhi which was at the time the highest amount ever paid for a painting in India. Besides remaining an inspiration to many a contemporary Indian artists, in 1993, she also became the inspiration behind, the famous Urdu play, by Javed Siddiqi, ‘Tumhari Amrita’ (1992), starring Shabana Azmi and Farooq Shaikh. Her work is a key theme in the contemporary Indian novel “Faking It” by Amrita Chowdhury. Aurora Zogoiby, a character in Salman Rushdie’s 1995 novel, “The Moor’s Last Sigh”, was inspired by Amrita Sher-Gil.

Despite her short career as an artist, Amrita Sher-Gil remains one of the most captivating, curious and alluring artists of her time. With such a precocious talent for painting and a unique post-impressionist style, her development of subjectivity through self-portraits and struggle for artistic identity, will continue to ignite contemporary interest. As an eminent Indian painter, her importance as a pioneer of the modern movement will remain in posterity for years to come. Being a woman who came from an affluent and upper-middle class strata, she encouraged a spirit of defiance against social norms and encouraged women to play a more prominent role within the field of art. She is today considered an important woman painter of 20th-century India, whose legacy stands on a par with that of the ‘Masters of Bengal Renaissance’. She is also the “most expensive” woman painter of India. 

Source: Wikipedia and Google search.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

#47/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

It feels great when a friend reads something somewhere and remembers that it’s something you are following and forwards you a reference. It was a friend who suggested to me to read about Cecilia and I cannot be thankful enough.

Back when scientists believed that the sun is made out of heavy elements, a 25 year old student wrote a brilliant and revolutionary doctor's dissertation proving everyone wrong. It was the bright and talented Cecilia Payne, a British - American astronomer and astrophysicist who, in 1925, proposed in her PhD thesis an explanation for the composition of stars in terms of the relative abundances of hydrogen and helium.

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin was born in England. She is one of the few women that have successfully blazed into male dominated scientific community. Cecilia is one of the world’s most accomplished and successful astrologists. Her career in astrology helped many other women pursue a career in science. Her greatest achievement, however, is often overlooked as she was never given the proper credit for the same. Cecilia Payne managed to discover what the Sun was made of, as well as what other stars are made of. However, she was “robbed” of her achievement.

Cecilia Helena Payne was born on May 10, 1900 in Wendover, England. She was one of three children born to Emma Leonora Helena (née Pertz) and Edward John Payne, a London barrister, historian and accomplished musician. Cecilia's father died when she was four years old, forcing her mother to raise the family on her own.

She attended St Paul's Girls' School. In 1919, she won a scholarship to Newnham College, Cambridge University, where she read botany, physics, and chemistry. Here, she attended a lecture by Arthur Eddington on his 1919 expedition to the island of Principe in the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa to observe and photograph the stars near a solar eclipse as a test of Einstein's general theory of relativity. This sparked her interest in astronomy. At one open night for the public, Cecilia asked so many quality questions, that the staff of the university nicknamed her “The Professor”. She approached professor Eddington and told him she wants to be an astronomer and pursue a career in astrology. He invited her to use the observatory at the university, a move that opened many doors for her. She completed her studies, but was not awarded a degree because of her sex as Cambridge did not grant degrees to women until 1948.

Eddington encouraged her ambition, but she felt there were more opportunities for a woman to work in astronomy in the United States than in Britain, as the country was very strict towards woman in science. She realized that her only career option in the U.K. was to become a teacher, so she looked for grants that would enable her to move to the United States. After being introduced to Harlow Shapley, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory, who had just begun a graduate program in astronomy, she left England in 1923. This was made possible by a fellowship to encourage women to study at the observatory. The first student on the fellowship was Adelaide Ames (1922) and the second was Cecilia Payne. So, she moved to the United States and it was at Harvard that she achieved her greater success and flourished as an astronomer.

Beginning in the 1880s, astronomers at Harvard College such as Edward Pickering, Annie Jump Cannon, Williamina Fleming, and Antonia Maury had succeeded in classifying stars according to their spectra into seven types: O, B, A, F, G, K, and M. It was believed that this sequence corresponded to the surface temperature of the stars, with O being the hottest and M the coolest. In her PhD thesis (published as Stellar Atmospheres in 1925), Cecilia used the spectral lines of many different elements and the work of Indian astrophysicist Meghnad Saha, who had discovered an equation relating the ionization states of an element in a star to the temperature to definitively establish that the spectral sequence did correspond to quantifiable stellar temperatures. She also determined that stars are composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. However, she was dissuaded from this conclusion by astronomer Henry Norris Russell, who thought that stars would have the same composition as Earth. (Russell conceded in 1929 that Cecilia Payne was correct.) Cecilia received the first PhD in astronomy from Radcliffe College for her thesis, since Harvard did not grant doctoral degrees to women. Astronomers Otto Struve and Velta Zebergs later called her thesis “undoubtedly the most brilliant PhD thesis ever written in astronomy.”

Cecilia remained at Harvard as a technical assistant to Shapley after completing her doctorate. Shapley had her discontinue her work with stellar spectra and encouraged her instead to work on photometry of stars by using photographic plates, even though more accurate brightness measurements could be made by using recently introduced photoelectric instruments. She later wrote, “I wasted much time on this account.…My change in field made the end of the decade a sad one.” During this period, however, she was able to continue her stellar spectral work with a second book, Stars of High Luminosity (1930), which paid particular attention to Cepheid variables and marked the beginning of her interest in variable stars and novae. In her career, Cecilia has surveyed all the stars that are brighter than the tenth magnitude. She has made more than 1,250,000 observations.

According to G. Kass-Simon and Patricia Farnes, Cecilia Payne's career marked a turning point at Harvard College Observatory. Under the direction of Harlow Shapley and Dr E. J. Sheridan (whom she has described as a mentor), the observatory had already offered more opportunities in astronomy to women than any other institution, and notable achievements had been made earlier in the century by Williamina Fleming, Antonia Maury, Annie Jump Cannon, and Henrietta Swan Leavitt. However, with Cecilia's PhD, women entered the ‘mainstream’. The trail she blazed into the largely male-dominated scientific community was an inspiration to many. For example, she became a role model for noted astrophysicist Joan Feynman. Joan's mother and grandmother had dissuaded her from pursuing science, since they believed women were not physically capable of understanding scientific concepts. But Joan was later inspired by Cecilia when she came across some of her work in an astronomy textbook. Seeing her research published in this way convinced Joan Feynman that she could, in fact, follow her scientific passions.

In 1933, Cecilia travelled to Europe to meet Russian astronomer Boris Gerasimovich, who had previously worked at the Harvard College Observatory and with whom she planned to write a book about variable stars. In Göttingen, Germany, she met Sergey Gaposchkin, a Russian astronomer who could not return to the Soviet Union because of his politics. She was able to find a position at Harvard for him. They married in 1934 and often collaborated on studies of variable stars. They settled in the historic town of Lexington, Massachusetts, a short commute from Harvard. They had three children, Edward, Katherine, and Peter. Her daughter remembers her as “an inspired seamstress, an inventive knitter, and a voracious reader.” She was named a lecturer in astronomy in 1938, but even though she taught courses, they were not listed in the Harvard catalogue until after World War II.

In 1956, Cecilia Payne was appointed a full professor at Harvard and became the first woman to be promoted to a full time professor at Harvard’s faculty of Arts and Science. She was later appointed to Chair of the Department of Astronomy, making her the first woman with a department at Harvard. Some of her more prominent students included Frank Drake, Helen Hogg, Paul W. Hodge and Joseph Ashbrook. All of them made significant contributions to the field of astronomy. She retired from teaching in 1966, but continued her research as a member of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. She also wrote an autobiography, The Dyer’s Hand, that was posthumously collected in Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections (1984). Her other printed works include academic books, namely, The Stars of High Luminosity (1930), Variable Stars (1938), Variable Stars and Galactic Structure (1954), Introduction to Astronomy (1956) and The Galactic Novae (1957). She passed away on December 7, 1979.

During her illustrious lifetime, she won numerous awards, like, the Annie J. Cannon Award in Astronomy in 1934 of which she was the first recipient; the award of Merit from Radcliffe College in 1952; and the Rittenhouse Medal from the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society at the Franklin Institute in 1961. She became an elected member of Royal Astronomical Society while still a student at Cambridge in 1923; a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1936; a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1943; an Emeritus Professor of Harvard University in 1967; and also won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society in 1976. She was awarded many honorary degrees from Rutgers University, Wilson College, Smith College, Western College, Colby College, and the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Moreover, the Asteroid 2039 Payne-Gaposchkin was named after her.

In Cecilia Payne’s own words, “The reward of the young scientist is the emotional thrill of being the first person in the history of the world to see something or to understand something. Nothing can compare with that experience... The reward of the old scientist is the sense of having seen a vague sketch grow into a masterly landscape.” Let’s hope she continues to inspire all young minds, and not just of women, to continue to challenge what exists and never be afraid to fail. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.

Hedy Lamarr

#46/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Hedy Lamarr was a beautiful Austrian-American actress during MGM's "Golden Age" who also left her mark on technology. She helped develop an early technique for spread spectrum communication for the US. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are now incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA, and Bluetooth technology, and this work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

Hedy was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in 1914 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, the only child of Gertrud and Emil Kiesler. Her father was born to a Jewish family in Lemberg (now Lviv in Ukraine) and was a successful bank director. Her mother was a pianist and Budapest native who came from an upper-class Jewish family; she had converted from Judaism to Catholicism and was described as a "practicing Christian", who raised her daughter as a Christian.

In the late 1920s, when Hedy still in her teens, she was discovered as an actress and brought to Berlin by producer Max Reinhardt. Following her training in the theater, she returned to Vienna, where she began to work in the film industry, first as a script girl, and soon as an actress. In early 1933, at age 18, she starred in Gustav Machatý's film, Ecstasy (Ekstase in German, Extase in Czech), which was filmed in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Hedy’s role was that of a neglected young wife married to an indifferent older man. The film became notorious for showing Hedy's face in the throes of orgasm as well as close-up and brief nude scenes in which she is seen swimming and running through the woods.

On 10 August 1933, Hedy married Friedrich Mandl, an Austrian military arms merchant and munitions manufacturer who was reputedly the third-richest man in Austria. She was 18 years old and Mandl was 33. In her autobiography Ecstasy and Me, Hedy described Mandl as an extremely controlling husband who strongly objected to her simulated orgasm scene in Ecstasy, and prevented her from pursuing her acting career. Hedy claimed she was kept a virtual prisoner in their castle home, Schloss Schwarzenau. Mandl had close social and business ties to the fascist government of Italy, selling munitions to Mussolini; and, although his father was Jewish, he had ties to the Nazi government of Germany as well. Hedy wrote that Mussolini and Hitler attended lavish parties at the Mandl home. She accompanied Mandl to business meetings, where he conferred with scientists and other professionals involved in military technology. These conferences were her introduction to the field of applied science and the bedrock that nurtured her latent talent in science. Hedy's marriage to Mandl eventually became unbearable, and she decided to separate herself from both him and her country. In her autobiography, she wrote that she disguised herself as her maid and fled to Paris; but by other accounts, she persuaded Mandl to let her wear all of her jewelry for a dinner party, then disappeared afterward.

After arriving in Paris in 1937, she met Louis B. Mayer, who was scouting for talent in Europe. Mayer persuaded her to change her name to Hedy Lamarr (she had been known as "the Ecstasy lady"), choosing the surname in homage to the beautiful silent film star, Barbara La Marr. He brought her to Hollywood in 1938, and began promoting her as the "world's most beautiful woman". She made her American film debut in Algiers (1938), opposite Charles Boyer. The film created a "national sensation," says Shearer. She was billed as an unknown but well-publicized Austrian actress, which created anticipation in audiences. Mayer hoped she would become another Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. According to one viewer, when her face first appeared on the screen, "everyone gasped...Lamarr's beauty literally took one's breath away." In future Hollywood films, she was invariably typecast as the archetypal, glamorous seductress of exotic origin. Hedy played opposite the era's most popular leading men. Her many films included Boom Town (1940) with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, Comrade X with Gable, White Cargo (1942), Tortilla Flat (1942) with Tracy and John Garfield, H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941) with Robert Young, and Dishonored Lady (1947). In 1941, she was cast alongside Lana Turner and Judy Garland in Ziegfeld Girl.

Hedy made 18 films from 1940 to 1949, and also had two children during that time (in 1945 and 1947). After leaving MGM in 1945, she enjoyed her biggest success as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah, the highest-grossing film of 1949, with Victor Mature as the Biblical strongman. However, following a comedic role opposite Bob Hope in My Favorite Spy (1951), her career went into decline. She appeared only sporadically in films after 1950, one of her last roles being that of Joan of Arc in Irwin Allen's critically panned epic, The Story of Mankind (1957). White Cargo, one of her biggest hits at MGM, contains arguably her most memorable film quote, delivered with provocative invitation: "I am Tondelayo. I make tiffin for you?" This line typifies many of Lamarr's roles, which emphasized her beauty and sexuality, while giving her relatively few lines. Her view on glamour was, "Any girl can be glamorous, all you have to do is stand still and look stupid." The lack of acting challenges bored her and she reportedly took up inventing to relieve her boredom.

Hedy's earliest inventions included an improved traffic stoplight and a tablet that would dissolve in water to create a carbonated drink. The beverage was unsuccessful; Hedy herself said it tasted like Alka-Seltzer. In 1942 though, during the heyday of her career, Hedy finally earned recognition in a field quite different from entertainment. With the ongoing World War, Hedy was inspired to contribute to the war effort, designing a jam-proof radio guidance system for torpedoes. With the help of composer George Antheil, they drafted designs for a new frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum technology that they later patented. Lamarr and Antheil realized that radio-controlled torpedoes, which could be important in the naval war, could easily be jammed, thereby causing the torpedo to go off course. With the knowledge she had gained about torpedoes from her first husband, and using a method similar to the way piano rolls work, they designed a frequency-hopping system that would continually change the radio signals sent to the torpedo.

As is the case with many of the famous women inventors, Hedy Lamarr received very little recognition of her innovative talent at the time, but recently she has been showered with praise for her groundbreaking invention. Although their invention was granted a patent on 11 August 1942 (filed using her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey); yet, it was technologically difficult to implement, and at that time the U.S. Navy was not receptive to considering inventions coming from outside the military. Only in 1962 (at the time of the Cuban missile crisis) did an updated version of their design appear on Navy ships. The design is one of the important elements behind today's spread-spectrum communication technology, such as modern CDMA, Wi-Fi networks, and Bluetooth technology. Years later, in 1997, they received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award and the Bulbie Gnass Spirit of Achievement Bronze Award, given to individuals whose creative lifetime achievements in the arts, sciences, business, or invention fields have significantly contributed to society. Hedy was the first female ever to win this award. She was featured on the Science Channel and the Discovery Channel. In 2014, Hedy and Antheil were posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Hedy Lamarr had wanted to join the National Inventors Council, but was reportedly told by NIC member Charles F. Kettering and others that she could better help the war effort by using her celebrity status to sell War Bonds. She participated in a war bond selling campaign with a sailor named Eddie Rhodes. Rhodes would be in the crowd at each of her appearance, and she would call him up on stage. She would briefly flirt with him before asking the audience if she should give him a kiss. The crowd would of course say yes, to which Hedy would reply that she would if enough people bought war bonds. After enough bonds were purchased, she would give Rhodes his kiss, and he would head back into the audience. Then they would head off to the next war bond rally.

Hedy Lamarr was married six times. She adopted a son, James, in 1939 during her second marriage Gene Markey. She went on to have two biological children, Denise (b. 1945) and Anthony (b. 1947), with her third husband, actor John Loder, who also adopted James. Following her sixth and final divorce in 1965, Hedy remained single for the last 35 years of her life. Hedy became a naturalized citizen of the United States at age 38 on 10 April 1953. She was arrested twice for shoplifting, once in 1966 and once in 1991, but neither arrest resulted in a conviction. Her autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, was published in 1966. However, she said on TV that it was not actually written by her, implying that much of it was fictional. According to the book, she slipped into a brothel and hid in an empty room while fleeing her estranged husband, Fritz Mandl. While her husband searched the brothel, a man entered the room and she had sex with him so she could remain unrecognized. She escaped by hiring a maid who resembled her; she drugged the maid and used her uniform as a disguise to escape. Hedy later sued the publisher, saying that many of the anecdotes in the book, which was described by a judge as "filthy, nauseating, and revolting," were fabricated by its ghost writer, Leo Guild. She was also sued in Federal Court by Gene Ringgold, who asserted the actress's autobiography contained material from an article about her life which he wrote in 1965 for a magazine called Screen Facts. The publication of her autobiography took place about a year after the accusations of shoplifting and a year after Andy Warhol's short film Hedy (1966). The shoplifting charges coincided with a failed attempt to return to the screen in Picture Mommy Dead (1966). The role was ultimately filled by Zsa Zsa Gabor.

The 1970s was a decade of increasing seclusion for Hedy. She was offered several scripts, television commercials, and stage projects, but none piqued her interest. In 1974, she filed a $10-million lawsuit against Warner Bros., claiming that the running parody of her name ("Hedley Lamarr") in the Mel Brooks' comedy Blazing Saddles infringed her right to privacy. Brooks said he was flattered; the studio settled out of court for an undisclosed nominal sum and an apology to Lamarr for “almost using her name". Brooks said that Hedy Lamarr "never got the joke". With failing eyesight, she retreated from public life and settled in Florida in 1981. In her later years, Hedy lived a reclusive life in Casselberry, a community just north of Orlando, Florida, where she died on January 19, 2000, at the age of 86.

For several years beginning in 1997, the boxes of CorelDRAW’s software suites were graced by a large Corel-drawn image of Hedy Lamarr. The picture won CorelDRAW’s yearly software suite cover design contest in 1996. Hedy sued Corel for using the image without her permission. Corel countered that she did not own rights to the image. The parties reached an undisclosed settlement in 1998. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hedy Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd adjacent to Vine St where the Walk is centered.

In her later years, Hedy turned to plastic surgery to preserve the looks she was terrified of losing. She had to endure disastrous results. "She had her breasts enlarged, her cheeks raised, her lips made bigger, and much, much more" said her son, Anthony. "She had plastic surgery thinking it could revive her looks and her career, but it backfired and distorted her beauty". Anthony Loder also claimed that Hedy was addicted to pills. She also became estranged from her adopted son, James Lamarr Loder, when he was 12 years old. Their relationship ended abruptly and he moved in with another family. They did not speak again for almost 50 years. She left James Loder out of her will and he sued for control of the US$3.3 million estate left by Lamarr in 2000.

In the last decades of her life, the telephone became her only means of communication with the outside world, even with her children and close friends. She often talked up to six or seven hours a day on the phone, but she hardly spent any time with anyone in person in her final years. A documentary, Calling Hedy Lamarr, was released in 2004. Lamarr's children, Anthony Loder and Denise Loder-DeLuca, were featured in the documentary. An off-Broadway play, Frequency Hopping, features the lives of Lamarr and Antheil. The play was written and staged by Elyse Singer in 2008, and the script won a prize for best new play about science and technology from Stage. The 2010 New York Public Library exhibit, Thirty Years of Photography at the New York Public Library included a photo of a topless Lamarr (c. 1930) by Austrian-born American photographer Trude Fleischmann. The story of Lamarr's frequency-hopping spread-spectrum invention was explored in an episode of the Science Channel show Dark Matters: Twisted But True, a series which explores the darker side of scientific discovery and experimentation, which premiered on 7 September 2011. Her work in improving wireless security was part of the premiere episode of the Discovery Channel show How We Invented the World. On 20 May 2010, Hedy Lamarr was chosen from 150 IT people to be featured in a short film launched by the British Computer Society (BCS).

Proving she was much more than just another pretty face, Hedy Lamarr shattered stereotypes and earned a place among the 20th century's most important women inventors. She truly was a visionary whose technological acumen was far ahead of its time. 

Source: Wikipedia and Google search.

R. Umadevi Nagraj

#45/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Revanna Umadevi Nagraj embarked on a journey back in 1995 in the billiards room of Karnataka Government Secretariat (KGS) Club; a journey of effort, persistence and unbridled glory. As she set out to realise her dream, life began for her at 47.

Umadevi, born on 11 February 1965, had a very mundane existence as after the completion of her SSLC and training in typewriting, she started working as a typist for the horticulture department in 1989 at Lalbagh in Bangalore. Her passion for the game was a divine discovery as she chose to explore table tennis initially which was actively played by government staffers. Waiting endlessly amidst a bunch of people for her turn to play, the spark within her could not be suppressed as she wandered off to the nearby billiards table. Its then secretary Krishna Kumar took her to the billiards room and thrust a cue in her hands. There was no looking back since then. She started to play the game out of curiosity but got hooked to it as she played more and soon realized that she was destined to play billiards.

She started practicing after office hours, and her dedication and hard work got her to the number three position on the state snooker ranking. This was a great boost to her morale and gave wings to her already flying dreams. The state ranking got her membership of the Karnataka State Billiards Association (KSBA). Understanding her passion for the game, the horticulture department transferred Umadevi to Cubbon Park, where she could further her sports interests. Being a shy girl, she could not communicate properly with people which led her to becoming the butt of many jokes, but she didn’t let this come in her way and decided to gain everyone’s respect through a good game. She was always different as she chose to initiate something new by extending her limitations, thereby starting on an outstanding journey.

Arjuna awardee cueist Aravind Savur became her mentor at the KGS Club. Later she was trained by Jairaj, former coach of the national billiards team. It was the sheer result of her firm resolution and hard work that she won her first national championship in Ahmedabad (2002). 

After her first national championship, she started getting a lot of opportunities to play abroad, but she could not afford it due to financial restrictions. She would go and practice the game everyday, come back and immerse herself in daily household chores with her mind elsewhere. When her husband noticed this, he did a few financial “adjustments” and arranged for some money for her trip. “I went only because he urged me to,” she says. Then there was no looking back as billiards became synonymous to living, for her. She participated in the World championships in China (2003), Netherlands (2004) and Syria (2011). She won the women’s billiards and snooker world championship at Cambridge in the UK in 2012, and reached the pinnacle of the game. She also received Arjuna award in 2009 for her contribution to Billiards. The humble senior typist working with the state horticulture department made it to the top, beating seven competitors from various countries.

“If you want to see the dawn, make the sun rise, if there is no sun, make one.” Umadevi made her own sun and created the dawn of her life by defying the age old conventions which governed the life of every sportsperson. The senior most player never let the age factor hinder her progressive journey, instead her sheer exuberance and passion translated into fantastic games which made her the queen of billiards. From an introvert, reserved senior typist to the world champion, the metamorphosis has been incredible.

“There are many things that one learns from a sport. Cue sport has primarily helped me grow as an individual. I was somebody who did my routines, and just stuck to myself. Today, the game has taken me places. I am much more confident and social”, she says. Today, women are getting recognition in every field of life including their corporate jobs, dance, music, cinema, etc. Choosing sports as a career just requires extra effort and dedication. Umadevi sets an example for many such women who want to pursue their dreams of becoming a sports star but are hesitant due to their family responsibilities and age. A lesson we have learnt from Umadevi is that it’s never too late to chase your dreams. R. Umadevi is a lustrous example of a story driven by passion which was created by the intensity of her own burning desires, giving way to a magnificent reality. The Arjuna awardee is an embodiment of a true leader as her action has inspired budding sportspersons out there to believe in them and realise their dream. 

Source: Google search.

Jackie Mitchell

#44/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Some 85 years before modern pro ball started welcoming women to its ranks, a young southpaw from Memphis was knocking on the glass ceiling. Virne Beatrice "Jackie" Mitchell Gilbert was one of the first female pitchers in professional baseball history. Pitching for the Chattanooga Lookouts Class AA minor league baseball team in an exhibition game against the New York Yankees, she struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in succession and then was fired for it.

Jackie was born on August 29, 1913 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Virne Wall Mitchell and Dr. Joseph Mitchell. When she learned how to walk, her father took her to the baseball diamond and taught her the basics of the game. Her next door neighbor, Dazzy Vance, taught her to pitch and showed her his "drop ball", a type of breaking ball. Vance was a major league pitcher and would eventually be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. At the age of 16, Jackie began playing for the Engelettes, a women's team in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and went on to attend a baseball training camp in Atlanta, Georgia. In doing so she attracted the attention of Joe Engel, the so-called “Barnum of Baseball,” the president and owner of the Chattanooga Lookouts, who was known for using publicity stunts as a way to draw crowds during the Great Depression. Seeing her as an opportunity to draw attention to the Lookouts, he signed 17-year-old Jackie to the team on March 25, 1931. She appeared in her first professional game on April 2, 1931 becoming only the second woman to play organized baseball behind Lizzie Arlington who pitched for the Reading Coal Heavers against the Allentown Peanuts in a Minor league game in 1898. At that time, little did Engel know Ms. Mitchell would prove much more than a sideshow act.

On April 2, the major league New York Yankees took a detour on their way home from spring training to play a scrimmage against the minor league Lookouts. Press coverage of the young woman recently signed to Engel’s club was snide: “She swings a mean lipstick,” wrote one paper. “The curves won’t be all on the ball when pretty Jackie Mitchell takes the mound,” another outlet lamely quipped. Critics were shut up in short order, though: The Lookouts’ starting pitcher was yanked after facing just two batters, which brought Mitchell in to face the meat of the Bronx Bombers’ order. First up? Babe Ruth.

Tony Horwitz of the Smithsonian recounts the first at-bat: “Ruth let the first pitch pass for a ball. At Mitchell’s second offering, Ruth ‘swung and missed the ball by a foot.’ He missed the next one, too, and asked the umpire to inspect the ball. Then, with the count 1–2, Ruth watched as Mitchell’s pitch caught the outside corner for a called strike three. Flinging his bat down in disgust, he retreated to the dugout.” As Babe Ruth glared and verbally abused the umpire before being led away by his teammates to sit to wait for another batting turn, the crowd roared for Jackie. Next up was Lou Gehrig, another all-time great. Mitchell fanned him on three straight pitches. Though the Yankees would go on to thrash the Lookouts 14–4, Mitchell had made her point. One journalist wrote the next day, “The prospect grows gloomier for misogynists.” Jackie Mitchell became famous for striking out two of the greatest baseball players in history.

Predictably, the national male psyche in 1931 was wholly unprepared for a successful female ballplayer. Ruth, upset by the event, told reporters that “Women will never make good in baseball” because they “are too delicate. It would kill them to play every day.” The Sultan of Swat’s words found a home in the ear of baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who voided Jackie Mitchell’s contract on the dubious assertion that the sport was too physically tough for women. She would join several other unofficial pro leagues before retiring and joining the family business. 

Jackie continued to play professionally, barnstorming with the House of David, a men's team famous for their very long hair and long beards. While travelling with the House of David team, she would sometimes wear a fake beard for publicity. She retired in 1937 at the age of 23 after becoming furious since her story about playing baseball was being used something of a side show – once being asked to pitch while riding a donkey. She refused to come out of retirement when the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League formed in 1943. Major League Baseball would formally ban the signing of women to contracts on June 21, 1952. The ban lasted 40 years until 1992 when Carey Schueler was drafted by the Chicago White Sox for the 1993 season. Meanwhile, in 1982, Jackie was invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Chattanooga Lookouts on their season opening day. 

Jackie Mitchell died in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, on January 7, 1987, and was buried in Forest Hills Cemetery in Chattanooga. Though her career lacked longevity, it certainly burned bright for a brief moment. After all, she struck out the Great Bambino and the Iron Horse. How many can say that? 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.

Laxmi

#43/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Laxmi, who chooses to go only by her first name, is an Indian campaigner with Stop Acid Attacks and a TV host. She is an acid attack survivor and speaks for the rights of acid attack victims. She was attacked in 2005 at age 15, by a 32-year-old man whose advances she had rejected. She is also an active advocate against acid attacks and has taken her fight forward by gathering 27,000 signatures for a petition to curb acid sales, and taking that cause to the Indian Supreme Court. Her petition led the Supreme Court to order the central and state governments to regulate the sale of acid, and the Parliament to make prosecutions of acid attacks easier to pursue. She is currently the director of Chhanv Foundation, a NGO dedicated to help the survivors of acid attacks in India. 

Her story is that of amazing grit and indomitable will. Laxmi was born in 1990 in New Delhi in a middle-class family. Her face and other body parts were disfigured in the said acid attack. A minor then, Laxmi was attacked with acid by three persons near Tughlaq road in New Delhi as she had refused to marry one of them. She spotted 32-year-old Naeem Khan, one of her friend’s brothers, as she was shopping in Khan Market, South Delhi, but suddenly, the woman he was with pushed me to the ground and a cold liquid splashed across Laxmi's face, causing an unimaginable burning sensation. Laxmi rolled around on the dirty city street in a desperate bid to stop the pain until eventually a local taxi driver came forward to help, throwing water over her face. The taxi driver rushed Laxmi to nearby Safdarjang Hospital, shouting “acid attack” encouraging people to move out of the way. It was only then that Laxmi realised what had happened. She said: “I felt as if someone had set my whole body on fire. The skin was just coming off, it was like dripping, from my hands and from my face.” She has undergone nine major surgeries to try and reduce the burns to her skin since the horrific attack in a busy market in 2005 - and the last left her on a ventilator for four days.

Now, Laxmi feels an overwhelming strength to change the acid attacks that continue to happen in India in a bid to help her daughter grow up in a safer country. She later filed a PIL seeking framing of a new law, or amendment to the existing criminal laws like IPC, Indian Evidence Act and CrPC for dealing with the offence, besides asking for compensation. She had also pleaded for a total ban on sale of acid, citing increasing number of incidents of such attacks on women across the country. During a hearing in April, the Centre had assured the Supreme Court of India that it will work with the state governments to formulate a plan before the next hearing. However, when the Centre failed to produce a plan, the Supreme Court warned that it will intervene and pass orders if the government failed to frame a policy to curb the sale of acid in order to prevent chemical attacks. “Seriousness is not seen on the part of government in handling the issue,” the bench headed by Justice RM Lodha had said. The court also directed the Centre to convene a meeting of Chief Secretaries of all states and Union Territories to hold discussion for enacting a law to regulate the sale of acids and a policy for treatment, compensation and care and rehabilitation of such victims.

Meanwhile, in 2013, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Laxmi and Rupa’s plea, thereby creating a fresh set of restrictions on the sale of acid. Under the new regulations, acid could not be sold to any individual below the age of 18 years. One is also required to furnish a photo identity card before buying acid. Laxmi claims that not much has changed on the ground, despite all the regulations. “Acid is freely available in shops. Our own volunteers have gone and purchased acid easily. In fact, I have myself purchased acid,” she said. “We have launched a new initiative called ‘Shoot Acid’. By means of the Right to Information Act, we are trying to acquire data concerning the sale of acid in every district. We intend to present the information collected through this initiative before the Supreme Court to apprise them of the situation on the ground.”

On personal front, she had once given up on finding a partner thanks to the stares and comments she received in public left her too ashamed to leave the home, but went on to find love through her campaigning work to stop other women suffering the same fate. Laxmi began working with the charity Stop Acid Attacks and through it met founder Alok Dixit, with whom she found love. Although the attack has left its mental scars, she said she is no longer ashamed of the physical scars. She said: “After the attack, I never thought I would ever find a soulmate. I had lost hope. But in Alok, I couldn't have found anyone better. He understood the kind of pain I was in. He understood what I had been going through. He wasn’t like other men my age – he was completely committed to the campaign and making a change in life, and I fell for that. I never told him, though. But then three months after we first met, while we were working one afternoon, Alok admitted he had feelings for me. He said he’d fallen for my courage and spirit.” The couple, however, are challenging society norms by not getting married. “We have decided to live together until we die. But we are challenging the society by not getting married,” Laxmi said. Alok added: “We are not going to follow the norms that the society approves of. We will prove that our love does not need a name. Our love is about understanding and support.” Laxmi and Alok continue to work together helping and supporting many survivors of acid attacks in India, and last year they launched the Sheroes Hangout, which is a café, in Agra, run by victims of acid attacks. 

Laxmi and Alok are now proud parents of a baby girl whom they have named Pihu. Although thrilled, she revealed that she was terrified of how her child would react to her injuries. As her daughter Pihu celebrates her first birthday, Laxmi said: “I was overjoyed but I started to worry – how would my child react to my face? Would they be scared of me, or find it difficult to bond with me? I tried to enjoy my pregnancy but these thoughts would fill my head and I worried how I would cope once I gave birth.” But when Pihu arrived the following April, Laxmi's fears became a distant memory. “The moment we locked eyes, I loved her more than anything in the world. Sometimes I struggle to believe something so beautiful is a part of me – it’s a happiness I never thought I’d feel,” she said. “I never imagined that I would become a mother. It’s nature’s gift. It has brought inexplicable happiness. I see her and think how can something so beautiful be my daughter? It’s a happiness I never thought I’d feel.” Now, Laxmi feels an overwhelming strength to change the acid attacks that continue to happen in India in a bid to help her daughter grow up in a safer country. She added: “I’ve already decided that, when the time is right, I will tell Pihu about what happened to me. It's not a nice story and I worry about that day. But I will not tell her my story until she asks. Only when she asks me why I look the way I do, will I tell her my real life story. I don’t want her to hear about it from anyone else. It’s my story and I will have to explain to her what happened to me. I just hope my charity work will help protect my daughter from any type of attack in the future. She will see survivors throughout her life on every level, daily. And she will witness the struggles her own parents go through to build a better future but we will not give up, we will keep fighting for change a better life.”

In March 2014, Laxmi was invited to the International Woman of Courage Celebration in Washington DC by Michelle Obama. She was one of 10 women honoured for courageous and selfless efforts advocating for peace, justice, human rights and women’s equality – often in the face of great personal risk. And on her return home, she was offered her own weekly talk show (called Udaan) for acid-attack survivors on Indian TV channel News Express. Then, in January she was named as the star of an India designer's clothing campaign called the 'Face of Courage' and said she wants to show other women who have been attacked to have courage. She was also chosen as the NDTV Indian of the Year (LIC Unsung Hero of the Year) for the year 2013. 

Source: Google search and Wikipedia.