Another year has gone by, and here you are – another grey hair, and hopefully, a little wiser. While you’re bracing yourself (and your liver) for a night of debauchery, check out this list of icons whom you share your special day with.
They just might be your idols, and who knows, you could one day be as famous as them!
Amitabh Bachchan
Bollywood’s original ‘Angry Young Man’ needs no introduction. In a nearly five-decade-long career, Amitabh Bachchan has acted in over 190 films and has received several awards, including the Padma Shri (1984), the Padma Bhushan (2001) and the Padma Vibhushan (2015), for his monumental contribution to the arts.
Among his most famous films are Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), Sholay (1975), Don (1978), Agneepath (1990), and the more recent Piku (2015) and Pink (2016). Bachchan is also well-known for his over decade-long stint as the host of popular Indian quiz show Kaun Banega Crorepati.
Eleanor Roosevelt
The longest-serving First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, was also a champion of human rights, which earned her the moniker ‘First Lady of the World’ from former US President Harry S Truman. Eleanor was orphaned at a young age and subsequently had a tough childhood.
In 1905, she married Franklin D Roosevelt, who was her fifth cousin twice removed. Her relationship with her husband, then President of the United States, was strained after she discovered his affair with Lucy Mercer in 1918.
Eleanor is remembered for her human rights activism and political activism, and for being especially outspoken at a time when women’s role in public life was even lesser than it is today.
Jayaprakash Narayan
Popularly known as ‘Lok Nayak’ meaning ‘folk hero’, late Jayaprakash Narayan was a pro-Independence activist before Partition, and a leader of the Indian National Congress. He is remembered for his staunch opposition to Indira Gandhi during her tenure as Prime Minister.
Among many awards, Narayan is also a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay award for Public Service (1965). He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1999 by the government of India. In a tribute to Narayan, the Chhapra-Delhi-Chhapra Weekly Express train was renamed ‘Loknayak Express’ on 1 August 2015.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Vietnamese Buddhist monk and advocate of peace, Thich Nhat Hanh is known, among other things, for coining the term ‘Engaged Buddhism’.
He had to live in exile, mostly in France, for decades, after a CIA document from the Vietnam War claimed the monk was a member of a rebel group.
In fact, despite having taught at prestigious universities like Columbia University and Princeton University in the US, Thich Nhat Hanh’s books were banned from his home country for decades.
In 2005, he was finally allowed to make his first trip to Vietnam in decades. Among his famous books are Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire. In the West, he is widely regarded as second only to the Dalai Lama, as far as Buddhist preachers go.
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