London, Sept. 19: An unusual and innovative painting, 9ft by 4ft, with the faces of 208 of “the world’s inspirational women” — many of them Indian — is to be unveiled tomorrow at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Each of the faces, including Madhuri Dixit’s as well as Sister Nirmala’s and Sheila Dikshit’s from India, is a 6in-by-4in painting by the London-based artist Jeroo Roy, who took a year and a half to complete the panel.

It will be taken on an extensive tour of Britain, India and other countries by the woman who made the highly personal selection of her 208 role models — author Zerbanoo Gifford, a Parsee who has also just published the companion book, Confessions of a Serial Womaniser: Secrets of the World’s Inspirational Women.

Gifford, who is married to an English barrister who she acknowledges has been a great support to her in her work raising funds for a human rights charity she founded, Asha, explained: “This is a book about women who have taken the world on, and made things happen, women who have transformed their own lives and the lives of others by their hard work, guts and acts of compassion.”

She added: “This book offers a snapshot of the beginning of a new era, when attitudes and behaviour towards women have changed, thanks to the struggles of suffragettes, feminists and enlightened men.”

She hopes the book, which has taken a decade to compile, will be read by those seeking a more harmonious work-life balance: “The pages of this book reveal their secrets on how to advance in the workplace, maintain a loving relationship and develop a contented outlook on life.”

Her choice of women is certainly subjective: the black British MP Diane Abbott; the double Oscar winning actress-turned-Labour MP Glenda Jackson; actress and author Sarah Miles; and the brilliantly hued designer Zandra Rhodes.

There are quite a few Indian women both from India and from the UK: Amisha Patel, Bachi Karkaria, Dadi Janki, Devaki Jain, Farzana Contracter, Kiran Bedi, Kusoom Vadgama (a London-based historian Gifford holds in particularly high regard), Lakshmi Shankar, Leila Seth (writer Vikram Seth’s mother, though he could equally be known as Leila’s son); Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, Mithali Raj, Rakhi Sarkar, Renuka Chowdhury, Rajmata Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, Shahnaz Husain, Sanjna Kapoor, Sooni Taraporevala — and Zerbanoo Gifford (born Calcutta, May 11, 1950) herself.

She defended herself against a possible accusation that the public might not understand her own inclusion. She said she saw herself as being part of the “collective of women” who have struggled against the odds, in her case in England, where she was once a local councillor in Harrow.

She met the women she has included, not least to ensure she could get their photographs to pass on to Roy, who in also on the panel.

“It is said that we are connected to everyone through six degrees of separation,” said Gifford, the busy mother of two sons. “I have now met so many women all over the world, from Hong Kong to Hampstead, Port Louis to Paris, New York to New Delhi, that there are only two degrees of separation between me and the rest of the world’s women.”

Thanks to Indian women, “India is having its golden moment,” Gifford, who is to visit Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Bangalore and other Indian cities, told The Telegraph today.