The Buddha : waking India up -- Mahavira : soldier of nonviolence -- Panini : catching the ocean in a cow's hoofprint -- Kautilya : the ring of power -- Ashoka : power as persuasion -- Charaka : on not violating good judgment -- Aryabhata : the boat of intellect -- Adi Shankara : a god without qualities -- Rajaraja Chola : cosmos, temple, and territory -- Basava : a voice in the air -- Amir Khusrau : the parrot of India -- Kabir : "Hey, you!" -- Guru Nanak : the discipline of deeds -- Krishnadevaraya : "kingship is strange" -- Mirabai : I go the other way -- Akbar : the world and the bridge -- Malik Ambar : the dark-fated one -- Dara Shikoh : the meeting-place of the two oceans -- Shivaji : dreaming big -- Nainsukh : owner transfixed by goose -- William Jones : enlightenment Mughal -- Rammohun Roy : "humanity in general" -- Lakshmi Bai, Rani of Jhansi : bad-ass queen -- Jyotirao Phule : the open well -- Deen Dayal : courtier with a camera -- Birsa Munda : "have you been to Chalkad?" -- Jamsetji Tata : making India -- Vivekananda : bring all together -- Annie Besant : an Indian tom-tom -- Chidambaram Pillai : Swadeshi steam -- Srinivasa Ramanujan : the elbow of genius -- Tagore : unlocking cages -- Visvesvaraya : extracting moonbeams from cucumbers -- Periyar : sniper of sacred cows -- Iqbal : death for falcons -- Amrita Sher-Gil : this is me -- Subhas Chandra Bose : a touch of the abnormal -- Gandhi : "in the palm of our hands" -- Jinnah : the chess player -- Manto : the unsentimentalist -- Ambedkar : building palaces on dung heaps -- Raj Kapoor : the politics of love -- Sheikh Abdullah : chains of gold -- V.K. Krishna Menon : somber porcupine -- Subbulakshmi : opening rosebuds -- Indira Gandhi : the center of everything -- Satyajit Ray : India without elephants -- Charan Singh : a common cause -- M.F. Husain : "Hindustan is free" -- Dhirubhai Ambani : fins.