Curated playlist
Recipients of the Bharat Ratna
- Nelson MandelaNelson Mandela wore a Springbok shirt to the 1995 Rugby World Cup final. He gave the trophy to an Afrikaner captain.
- 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.
- Jawaharlal NehruJawaharlal Nehru spent over nine years in prison across eight separate detentions. He later led India for 16 years.
- Maulana AzadJailed in Ahmednagar Fort, Maulana Azad wrote 24 letters that were never sent. Mail was forbidden.
- Vallabhbhai PatelVallabhbhai Patel had to persuade more than 565 princely states to join India.
- B. R. AmbedkarB. R. Ambedkar said he would be the first to burn India's Constitution. He had chaired the committee that drafted it.
- Amartya SenAmartya Sen carries a name that was chosen for him by a Nobel laureate. Rabindranath Tagore, the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize, gave the newborn the name অমর্ত্য. The boy was born on the 3rd of November 1933 in Santiniketan, Bengal,…
- Ravi ShankarRavi Shankar was horrified when Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire. The sitar master saw instruments as part of God.
- C. V. RamanC. V. Raman, the Indian physicist, bought two steamship tickets to Stockholm in July 1930. One was for himself and one was for his wife. The Nobel Prize announcements were not due until November. Raman knew that the voyage to Sweden by sea…
- Mother TeresaMother Teresa once summed herself up in a handful of short sentences. "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world." The woman who said this was born Anjezë…
- 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…