Google Doodle honours Indian-American artist Zarina Hashmi on her 86th birthday.

Born in 1937 in the small town of Aligarh, Hashmi and her four siblings lived an idyllic life. After the tragic partition of India in 1947, the Hashmis were forced to flee to Karachi in the newly-formed Pakistan. During this period, millions of people were displaced.

Zarina Hashmi, the celebrated Indian-American artist and printmaker, was recently honoured by Google on her 86th birthday with a captivating doodle. Created by guest artist Tara Anand based in New York, the doodle pays homage to Hashmi's unique style, which involved the use of minimalist abstract and geometric shapes to delve into the concepts of home, displacement, borders, and memory.

In 1997, at an event to felicitate her at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Sohonie told members of the Indian Women Scientists’ Association (IWSA), “Though Raman was a great scientist, he was very narrow-minded. I can never forget the way he treated me just because I was a woman.”

According to an article on the website of the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata, “she worked on ‘neera’, a drink made from palm extract on the suggestion of the First Indian President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. Her studies established that ‘neera’ was a good source of Vitamin C along with other vitamins, moreover there are sulfhydryl compounds in Neera that protect vitamins during storage. Realising that this would be a cheap and good supplement for poor tribals, she went to popularize this drink. The introduction of neera in the diet of tribal malnourished children and pregnant women improved their health significantly.”

Today's Google doodle serves as a testament to the lasting impact of Zarina Hashmi's contributions to the art world. Doodles, temporary alterations of the Google logo on its homepages, have become a means for the tech giant to celebrate significant events and pay tribute to notable public figures.