The news of passing away of Dr Phulrenu Guha at the age of 95 brought fond memories of the courageous but not too vocal a personality. Unfortunately the sad news was hardly noticed by the media in the Western zone of the country. Even when the news was flashed it mentioned only the political positions she had held in the Government during the Congress regime, but there was hardly a mention of her crucial role as the chair person of The Committee On The Status of Women in India (CSWI) which was responsible for the preparation of the ‘founding text’ –Towards Equality in 1975. The document which is upheld as the path breaking report on the Status of Indian women shattering quite a few notions about the ‘high ‘ position of women in Indian society.

Phulrenudi one of the few surviving Gandhians, was the Minister in charge of Social Welfare-a part of the Ministry of Education in the Indira Gandhi Government. Later she became the member of the Rajya Sabha; she was also the recepient of the Padma Bhushan award. She never hankered after self publicity, on the contrary she was most happy when she went for her grass root work In fact at the ripe age of 94 in spite of recovering from a fractured knee she used to spend more time with her rural sisters.

Phulrenudi was the founding chairperson of Centre for Women’s Development Studies.
The Indian Women’s movement salutes Dr Phulrenu Guha for her remarkable role in bringing to focus the women question

C S Lakshmi

Esther Victoria Abraham, better known as Pramila, the actress, is no more. In the early morning hours of August 6, 2006 she died peacefully in her sleep. When she became very weak, her loving son Hyder Ali, who is also an actor, had thoughtfully laid her on the cot in which her mother and grandmother had breathed their last and Pramila passed away peacefully in her sleep lying there. She was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Chinchpokli the next day. It was a wet, rainy day as if nature itself was mourning her death. Pramila’s death signifies the end of an era of films that had women and the nation as their core concerns. It was an era that was trying to deal with the educated, independent woman who was considered ‘modern’ by placing her in opposition to a Bharat Nari they were trying to create. Pramila was almost always cast as the educated woman who still had to understand the true values of Bharat. She was the woman who played the piano and fluttered her eyes at the hero. Despite the negativity such roles put her in, Pramila, with her wit and charm, always managed to outshine the heroine trying to portray the ‘true’ Indian woman. She retained this capacity to charm people till the end. She was a great raconteur and some of the stories she has told us are part of SPARROW in the form of a film and a booklet in English and seven Indian languages. People like Pramila may leave this physical world but they live on in the memories of those they have encountered and enriched.

C S Lakshmi