Curated playlist
Indian Hindus
- Mahatma GandhiOn the day India won freedom, Gandhi refused to celebrate. He fasted and spun cloth in Calcutta, pleading for peace.
- Harilal GandhiHarilal Gandhi appeared at his father's funeral in such poor health that few of the mourners recognized him. He was the eldest son of Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi, born into a family whose name is known across the world. Yet his own…
- Atal Bihari VajpayeeAtal Bihari Vajpayee ordered nuclear tests, then rode a bus to Lahore.
- Indira GandhiParty bosses chose Indira Gandhi as prime minister because they thought she was weak.
- Gopal GodseGopal Godse walked free in 1964 after 16 years in prison for plotting to kill Gandhi. His brother Nathuram was hanged.
- Devdas GandhiDevdas Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi's youngest son, had to wait five years to marry Lakshmi. They wed in 1933.
- Rabindranath TagoreAt sixteen, Rabindranath Tagore fooled experts with poems he called lost classics.
- Vallabhbhai PatelVallabhbhai Patel had to persuade more than 565 princely states to join India.
- Nathuram GodseA US vice-consul, not a soldier, grabbed Gandhi's killer. Herbert Reiner Jr. seized Nathuram Godse in 1948.
- Subhas Chandra BoseSubhas Chandra Bose is remembered in India as Netaji, a Hindustani title that means Respected Leader. The name did not begin on Indian soil. It was first used in early 1942, in Berlin. The speakers were soldiers of the Indische Legion,…
- Ravi ShankarRavi Shankar was horrified when Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire. The sitar master saw instruments as part of God.
- ShivajiShivaji, the Maratha ruler of the Deccan, was known to Aurangzeb and his generals as a "Mountain Rat." They meant it as contempt. The target was a man who struck their armies and then slipped away into the hills. He ended his life as a…
- Sarvepalli RadhakrishnanSarvepalli Radhakrishnan had just become President of India when some of his students and friends asked a simple favor. They wanted to celebrate his birthday, the 5th of September. He turned down the party and proposed something else. In…
- Srinivasa RamanujanSrinivasa Ramanujan was ill in a hospital at Putney when G. H. Hardy came to visit him. Hardy had ridden there in taxi cab number 1729. He remarked that the number seemed rather dull, and he hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. Ramanujan…
- Priyanka ChopraPriyanka Chopra Jonas was crowned Miss World at the Millennium Dome in London on the 30th of November 2000. In 2001, the bridge of her nose collapsed during surgery to remove a polyp. She fell into depression over an appearance she…