Quote by Sarojini Naidu: “Beauty is but a fleeting breath that lives and dies in one brief day.”

Physical beauty — and perhaps all beautiful things — is defined by its impermanence. Like a flower or a breath, it is most itself precisely because it fades. This is a melancholy observation, but also a kind of celebration: rarity is what gives beauty its power.

Naidu published The Golden Threshold in 1905, the year of the Partition of Bengal, which sparked the Swadeshi movement and intensified the Indian independence struggle. Her poetry from this period blends Romantic aesthetics with classical Indian imagery, and she was one of the first Indian women poets to gain recognition in both India and Britain.

Indian poet and political activist, known as the Nightingale of India, who was a leading figure in the Indian independence movement and a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. Born in Hyderabad in 1879, she was the first woman to be elected President of the Indian National Congress in 1925 and the first woman to serve as Governor of a state after independence. Her poetry collections include The Golden Threshold and The Bird of Time.