March 17
Tibetan spiritual leader Tenzin Gyatso, better known as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, escaped from Tibet to India on 17 March 1959. Born on 6 July 1935 in a farming family in a village in northeastern Tibet, Lhamo Dhondup (his name at the time), was at the age of two years recognised as the reincarnation of Thubten Gyatso,... Read More →
March 16
Iftikhar Ali Khan, the 8th Nawab of Pataudi, a member of the English squad during the infamous ‘Bodyline’ series who later captained the Indian cricket team, was born on 16 March 1910 in Pataudi House, Delhi. He is the only cricketer to have played Test cricket for both England and India. Pataudi was a small princely state in what is... Read More →
March 15
Govindan Aravindan, a cartoonist-turned-filmmaker known for his deeply personal films and unconventional style of filmmaking, was born on 21 January 1935 at Kottayam in Kerala. He died on 15 March 1991 in Thiruvananthapuram. His father, M.N. Govindan Nair, was a writer. In the 1960s, Aravindan worked as a cartoonist for various magazines and journals such as Mathrubhumi. His popular cartoon... Read More →
March 14
One of India’s biggest film stars, Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan, better known as Aamir Khan, was born on 14 March 1965 in Mumbai. His father, Tahir Hussain, was a film producer. Many members of Aamir Khan’s extended family were linked to the Hindi film industry. Khan’s first appearance on screen was as a child in a song in the film... Read More →
March 13
On 13 March 1940, a 40-year-old Indian man, dressed like a perfect English gentleman, pulled out a .45 Smith & Wesson revolver that was concealed under a book in a meeting hall in London, and fired six rounds into a group of people. Two shots hit a 75-year-old man in the back, one bullet passing his right lung and heart,... Read More →
March 12
Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan, union minister and Maharashtra’s first chief minister, was born in the state’s Sangli district on 12 March 1913. He was raised by his uncle and mother after his father’s death. He took part in the independence movement and in 1932 was sent to jail by the British for hoisting the tricolour. He studied history and political science... Read More →
March 11
Dwijendranath Tagore, a quintessential Bengali Renaissance man who, among other things, was a poet, composer, mathematician and philosopher, was born on 11 March 1840. Dwijendranath’s father and grandfather were Debendranath and Dwarkanath Tagore, respectively. Debendranath Tagore was a social and religious reformer and one of the founders of the Hindu reformist movement Brahmo Samaj. Dwarkanath Tagore was among the first... Read More →
March 10
Seven years after he returned from South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested and tried for sedition on 10 March 1922, a trial that led to a six-year jail sentence. However, he eventually served only two years of that term. When Gandhi returned toIndiafor good in 1915, he was already a well-known activist for the Indian community’s cause inSouth Africaand all... Read More →
March 9
A member of India’s Upper House of Parliament i.e. the Rajya Sabha, Karan Singh was born on 9 March 1931. He is a senior member of the Indian National Congress Party and has served successively as Sadr-i-Riyasat and Governor of Jammu and Kashmir. He is the son of the last ruler of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, Maharaja Hari Singh.... Read More →
March 9
One of the first female stars of Indian cinema, the glamorous Devika Rani was born to a Bengali family in what is now Visakhapatnam on 30 March 1908. She died on 9 March 1994. Devika Rani was related to the poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Her father, M.N. Chaudhuri, was a senior medical office in the British army. She... Read More →
