Mai Bhago — the warrior who rallied the lost

In 1705, forty Sikh soldiers signed a document saying they no longer wanted to follow Guru Gobind Singh Ji and walked away. It was Mai Bhago — a fearless woman from the village of Jhabal — who refused to accept this. She gathered the same forty men, shamed them with her courage, and led them back to battle against a large Mughal army at a place called Khidrana. The soldiers fought with such ferocity that the battle turned, and Guru Gobind Singh Ji forgave them and called them muktas — the liberated ones. Mai Bhago herself survived, went on to become a bodyguard of the Guru, and spent the rest of her long life in deep devotion and meditation.