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As the International Women`s day draws near, we can`t help but think of Helen Keller. She had so little in life, yet she refused to let her spirit die. She triumphed through tragedy and will forever remain an icon for the women of the world.

When Helen was just a little baby, an illness transported her to a dark and silent world. She learned to live through the eyes and ears of other people.

To quote the great lady:
I cannot remember how I felt when the light went out of my eyes. I suppose I felt it was always night and perhaps I wondered why the day did not come. Helen Keller

Helen`s salvation was her teacher Anne Sullivan. Keller grabbed her chances and learnt all that she could. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, she was wonderstruck by the world around her.

Self-empowerment

Helen Keller proved how language could liberate the blind and the deaf. She wrote, "Literature is my utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised". With language, Keller, who was blind and deaf, proved she could communicate to the world of sight and sound and was able to speak to it and live in it.

She gave herself a normal life and went to Perkins School in Boston. She was known as the miracle child with an amazing capacity for learning and retention. She learnt English, Latin, French and German.

She also learnt how to speak. For a girl who could not hear any words and could not see how people communicated, it was a gargantuan task. But Helen persevered for very many years, even well into her adulthood and succeeded. She also learnt to read lips with her fingers very adeptly.

A young man called Peter Fagan fell in love with her. Though the relationship never culminated in marriage, Helen had a happy but brief relationship with him.

Helen even acted in a Hollywood movie. For four years she went on a vaudeville tour, which gave her financial success. Helen led a full and rich life. She died on the afternoon of June 1, 1968, during a nap, just before her 88th birthday.

Helen Keller American author and educator, Helen Keller was blind and deaf. Her accomplishments in the field of education were extraordinary, inspite of her double handicap.
American author and educator, Helen Keller was blind and deaf. Her accomplishments in the field of education were extraordinary, inspite of her double handicap.

Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama, USA in June 1880. At the age of nineteen months, Helen Keller was struck with an illness that left her blind and deaf. She became mute shortly thereafter.

Upon the advice of counsel Alexander Graham Bell, in 1887 her parents secured a teacher named Anne Mansfield Sullivan from the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston. A remarkably close relationship developed between the teacher and the pupil. Miss Sullivan pressed the manual alphabet on to Helen`s palm and taught her young pupil the names of objects.

Helen soon learned to read by the Braille system and write by means of a specially constructed typewriter. She had learnt to speak by placing her fingers on Miss Sullivan`s Larynx to hear the vibrations. A translator was required, as Helen`s voice was not generally intelligible.

She graduated in 1904 from Radcliffe College. After graduation she served at the Massachusetts Commission for the blind. The play "The Miracle Worker " by William Gibson tells us the story of her early training.Helen Keller devoted her life completely to the deaf and blind people. She toured the world to promote the education of persons who were similarly afflicted like her. Throughout her life she worked and raised funds for the American Foundation for the blind by giving lectures in many countries. She was also a Pacifist and was active in social causes. She wrote numerous books such as the " Story of my Life ", the " Helen Keller Journal " to name a few. [1880 - 1968]