Ravi and John Coltrane
John Coltrane, the legendary jazz saxophonist, had a son named Ravi who was named after Pandit Ravi Shankar. Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist.
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The Alien and the Extraterrestrial
Satyajit Ray contended that Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET, would not have been possible without his 1967 script of The Alien being available throughout America in mimeographed copies.
Painting the Black Hole of Calcutta
In 1936, Syrie Maugham, a leading interior decorator, left for India to, in her words, "paint the Black Hole of Calcutta white". She was famous for popularising rooms styled entirely in white and was nicknamed The Princess of Pale.
Alam Ara
India's first talkie was Alam Ara (1931) starring Zubeida, who, as the daughter of the Nawab of Sachin, was a princess in real life. The film is now lost.
Shah Rukh
Timur / Tamerlane / Timur the Lame, founder of the Timurid dynasty and decimator of 5% of the world's population had a son named Shah Rukh.
Rabindranath Thakur Banerjee
Rabindranath Tagore's family name was actually Banerjee. Being Brahmins, the Tagore family's ancestors were referred to as 'Thakurmashai' or 'Holy Sir'. During the British rule, this name stuck and they began to be recognised as Thakur and eventually the family name got anglicised to Tagore.
Indira Gandhi in Puri
In 1984, Indira Gandhi was not allowed to enter the temple of Lord Jagannath at Puri because she had married a Parsi, Feroze Gandhi.
Nehru and temples
Jawaharlal Nehru was a lapsed Hindu, who never entered a temple in adult life.
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