Amita Shah
A tenacious survivor in national politics and a popular Dalit face
His 40,000 songs became the background score of the lives of millions of listeners
A classicist in politics for whom public life did not mean compromising on his moral inheritance
He understood that democratic politics is algebra, where various parts of the electoral equation are held together by governance, not deposits in vote banks
Juggling with figures remained the first love of the one-time economics teacher in an obscure Bengali college who became India’s youngest finance minister
A genre-bender who made Hindustani classical music an accessible, emotional experience
Anyone who has been around in Lutyens’ Delhi long enough has a story to tell about Amar Singh