Google celebrates Nightingale of India Sarojini Naidu's birthday in today's doodle

Google’s India page today has a doodle commemorating the 135th birth anniversary of Sarojini Naidu.

Naidu’s portrait is placed on the second ‘O’ within Google’s official logo. Google also included a pen in place of ‘L’ to indicate Naidu’s writing prowess.

A child prodigy, activist and a poet, she was the first female president of Indian National Congress and first female Governor of Uttar Pradesh.

In 1905, Naidu eulogised India in her poems published in three collections, The Golden Threshold (1905), The Bird of Time (1912) and the Broken Wing (1917).

Her poems got so much of appreciation that Naidu became to be known as ‘bul bule hind’ (The Nightangle of India). Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore admired for her works and Gopal Krishna Gokhale advised her to use her language to inspire people. Pained by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 she stopped writing poetry.

In the Indian freedom struggle, she played a pivotal role during the Civil Disobedience movement.

She also faced arrest in 1942 during the “Quit India” movement. Post-Independence, she served as the first Governor of the United Provinces from 1947 to 1949 and also contributed to the drafting of the Indian constitution.

Sarojini Naidu suffered a heart attack and died on 2 March, 1949 at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.