LalMahal

  The word LalMahal explodes emotions within me. The first headquarters of the Swaraj (Liberated land). This is the palace Shivaji came to when he returned back from Bangalore to run the Pune jahagir. This is the place that he knew well.  So well that he could enter it 30 years later for a Mission Impossible to assassinate an invader called Shahiste Khan who ha destroyed thousands of temple in Pune and was using Lal Mahal as his base camp.

LalMahal is literally a stone’s throw from Shanivawada. I went in there with the same expectation that I have gone to forts in the Sahadri: To be able to trace the steps of Shivaji. To be in the same 3 of the 4 cordinates as him…

The building looks promising from the outside.

The inside is hollow. Nothing remains.

The busy kitchen Shivai entered one evening disguised as a guest of a passing marriage march. Gone.

The staircase that he cautiously climbed unsheathing his sword. Gone.

The hallways he tiptoed looking for the sleeping giant. Gone

The door he threw open. The bed he rushed to. The startled monstrou silhouette. The flash of the Bhawani at the window. The bloody sill with the decapicated finger. Gone.

Just gone.   

Pratapgad::Shivaji’s fort

 

 

Pratapgad is famous for the assassination of Afzalkhan at the hands of Shivaji’s. The details are delightfully captured here.

The historic fort, built is 1656 by Shivaji, about 120KMs from Pune, and less than 30 KMs from Mahabaleshwar, is built on a steep mountain, well separated from the neighboring landscape.

 

 

As you climb the steps of the fort towards the impressive doorway, one of Shivaji’s primary design principles for all his forts is actually directly behind you (seen in the second image here), wherein the doorway (and hence the invading armies) can be attacked from one of the turrets of the fort. 

 

 

While the fort has many guns strewn across its acres, the first – but definitely not the most impressive- is visible as you enter the main door.

 

The battery you see on the right, in the patio of the Bhawani temple is, more than anything else, startlingly modern, in its shape, size and function.

It consists of a rock cutter, a shoulder mounted flame thrower, and a lightweight (35 kgs) sentry gun.

 

 

There are two sets of steps if you notice: One set has been in existence for the last four hundred, the second less than two years old   

Do I need to elaborate which is which? 

 

 

 

As we headed towards the ballekilla, the fortification within the fort, the second design principle emerges.

Forget the steps that you see leading up, they are as recent as two years ago. The two turrets completely hide the presence of any doorway. Infact the doorway is not visible halfway up the stairways in the second photo. This placement achieves two things 

(1) The doorway was obviously hidden from the prying eyes of walk-by spies

(2) Guns or elephants could not to be used to batter the doorway for want of a line of attack

The ballekilla held the main offices and was, obviously, never given away easily, exemplified by the little chor dindy (secret passageways and escape tunnels). Only the tunnels did not lead to a place of safety, they ran around the fort walls on the outside and came right at the entrance of the inner fort.

 

 

So imagine the ganimi kava (Maratha guerrilla warfare). The enemy is bitterly fought off until, there is not much left and then the resistance drops, you sense victory, come through the doors, see the fort emptied, and as you are peering down the walls to see if you can catch a glimpse of the running enemy, – get a shower of arrow from the very spot you occupied minutes ago !

 

The lake you see in this picture is an artificial one. It is the original mining site for all the rock that was required for building the fort. The water, BTW, don;t go by the color of the water…is still potable.

 

This is probably the most gruesome part of the fort – and my favorite. It is like the little detention room every principal pencils into their school’s floor plan.

Meet kade-lothe, the sheer cliff used to throw off bound, gagged and bagged criminals, the trechers and the deceivers. The cliff face was kept clean off vegetation so as not to allow accidental purchase during the fall and survival.

Survivors, by the way, were thrown down again.

 

 

 

 

Here are some lasting impressions of the place …

Shivaji’s Forts :: Sinhagad : Impossible in nothing

You do not have to be a Sun Tzsu to understand the strategically significance of this fort.

4000 feet above sea level. 1000 feet elevation from the ground. Clear visibility for miles around.  Line of site to four other forts. This think looks impregnable.

the views are breath taking unless you were one of the 16 century Mavalas trying to scale these rocks with bare hands.

The fort is about 30 KM from Pune where the national Defense Academy is based. "Singad" is the most often meted out punishment to  discipline the NDA cadets. the cadet leaves at sunrise, sprints from Kadakvasala to the top of the fort (without using the road) and back before lunch. An average cadet does this 20-25 times during their 2 year tenure…   

You enter the fort from Pune Darwaza (or Pune gate).

You see Daruche Kothar (ammunition store) on your right, one of the only surviving building. And it survived because the English – who destroyed everything else on the fort – used it as a church.

{Daruche Kothar – ammunition store }

On the left are little cubicles carved into the mountain – Ghodyachi Paga – Horse stables.

  To my eye, the architecture and design seems out of place. Especially the tunnels (following picture) makes it look more like the cave temples of Ajanta which is interesting as Ajanta predates the fort by about 400 years!

{Ghodyachi Paga – Horse stable – from the inside}

The path suddenly brings you to Tanajichi samadhi – Tanajis’s resting place -   the most spell binding story connected to Sinhagad.

This place is not where the story starts though…..It does not even start on this fort.

It starts on Rajgadh.

Shivaji had to hand over Kondana to the mughal emperor Aurangzeb as a part of the Purander treaty. Within months of escaping from Delhi and returning to the Sahyadris, Kondana was one of the first forts he wanted back and picked childhood friend, lieutenant and experience campaigner Tanaji  to lead. 

Tanaji staked the fort for 9 days by living under disguise of a Gondhali in a small village called Umbarthe at the foothills of the fort. He realized that Udaybhanu, the rajput fortkeeper had secured every possible entry point into the fort – except one sheer cliff which was considered unclimbable.

On the no-moons night of 4th of Feb 1670, while the force on the fort was in the midst of a drunken orgy, Tanaji lead 500 Mavalas – Maratha soldiers to the fort, He got Suryaji, his brother to lead 300 of these and hide outside Kalyan Darwaza, the main door during those times

{Kalyan Darwaza – the old main entrance to the fort}

The remaining 200 scaled the impossible cliff in absolute darkness with a stiff tropical wind blowing across the face of the smooth rock using basic ropes.

{Donagiri kada – use the trees on the top – each about 40-50 feet tall for scale}

By the time Udaybhanu collected his soldiers and mounted a counter, the Kalyan Darwaza has been opened from the inside and let the 300 force in.

Infuriated that his defense had been breached, Udaybhanu attacked Tanaji. What followed was a sword skirmish battle which moved  almost 3/4 of a kilometer on the fort. At one point Tanaji lost his shield to a Udaybhanu blow and under the force of sheer adrenalin is said to have used his left hand to ward off the sharp steel. the battle ended the only way it could have without either warrior loosing face – Tanaji and Udaybhanu killed each other almost simultaneously.

Shelarmama and Suryaji ensured that the remaining Maratha force surged ahead and took the fort from a force 3 times theirs.

The next day when Shivaji was told about Tanaji, he uttered the immortal words " Ek gad ala pun ek sinha gela" (I won a fort but lost a lion). Kondana was hence forth called Sinhagad or the Lion Fort

Other vignettes

 

{The famous fort lunch}

Technorati tags: Sinha Gad, Sinhagad, Singhagad, NDA, Singad, Shivaji, Aurangzeb, Tanaji Malusare, Suryaji, Shelar Mama, Udaybhanu, Rajgad, Mavalas, Umbarthe, Gondhali

The splendor of Shanivar Wada

I have been to Pune umpteen times, though this was the first time I saw Shanivar Wada on the inside. Like many places you find in India, splendidly built, poorly maintained, breathtaking

The historic palace of the Peshwa rulers, Shanivar Wada (literally Saturday Palace – because the construction started on   Satursday) became the seat of political power during Bajirao-I’s reign and became so conspicuous that to this date the palace has become the symbol of the city and its culture. Built in 1736 (for 16 odd thousand rupees), the Shaniwar Wada was once the palace of the great Peshwa rulers. The wada (Fort) was destroyed by a major fire that lasted for 7 days in 1827, the cause of the fire till today remains a mystery.

Wikipedia has a great write up so I will not try and reproduce it.

I did let my camera amok among the ruins. Here are some snippets

The view from the NagarKhana. The inside of the palace isolates you from the surrounding  hubub as soon as you cross the ramparts.

This is the beautiful complex of the "Duwai Bunglow" or the two-storeyed apartment. There is virtually no mention of this structure in historical writings and the raison d’être for this wonderful looking place is permanently lost in time.

As Rhea ran down the steps of, what I assume is a store room, I could not resist the temptation of a unusual angle. I guess, this is either a ventilator for air ciculation/ light or a shaft from pouring the grain down for storage.

The photogrphs below look peaceful, don’t they ? A harmless staircase and a innocous window?

This is the site of a 300 year old murder of a hapless 16 year old prince at the hands of his very own uncle.

The prince ran down these stairs shouting, "Save me, uncle" (Kaka, mala vachava)…

…and was slaughtered mercilessly in the vicinity of this door called "Narayan (name of the prince)  Darwaza (door)". If only the walls could tell the tale…

History convicted the murderer by making him the Peshwa. Justice has always been blind.. 

Sweety and Rhea perch directly over a (no longer) secret pasage which originates in the middle of the palace and opened 3.5 KMs away in Saras Baugh. A last ditch attempt to save lives from invading enemies or an escapeway for a midnight sojourn ?

A beautiful detail of the great door which was meant to keep the evil outside (and let the devils inside multiply?)

 

Rhea was facinated by the spikes which prevented the elephants from being used as a battering ram to enter the palace grounds.

I will go there again.

Sometime.

Armed with more research.

More literature.

And maybe, the walls WILL tell me a story.

Other images

Hazari Karanje  (or thousand fountains)

Gun purchased from East India Company

Mahadarwaza (or the main entrance)

 

Technorati tags: Shanivarwada, Shanivar Wada, Pune, Peshwas