Frontiers

by Medha Deshmukh Bhaskaran

  3

  The horse carrying Shivaji flies like a javelin across the flatlands of north Konkan, followed by his five thousand horsemen. Cool morning air whips past him as the ground thunders under their horses’ hooves. His scouts ride before him, leading him to Mahuli Fort, the only hill fort in the region of north Konkan that remains to be captured. It is also the only fort in the region that belongs to the Mughals. Aurangzeb will not help Shivaji; his evasive answer made that much very clear. Hence, taking over the Mahuli Fort is fully justified. Shivaji’s eyes search the skies till the cluster of hills rise high over the northern horizons. The forest at the foothills teems with trees of teak and banyan. As planned, it is time to stop. His men slow down and gather around him. He looks at them, his eyes moving from one face to another: Pinglay, Abaji Sondev, Netoji Palkar, Tanaji, Yesaji, Kavji, Murarbaji and Ibrahim Khan. They are of different castes, but are all warriors, ready to bathe their swords in the blood of their enemies in their fight for swaraj.

  His eyes slowly move towards Mahuli Hill. It looms a few hundred guj above him. Enormous spurs rise above the mountain, strangely resembling giant humans. Near the hilltop he can faintly see the outer wall of the fort. Twenty years ago, his father had hidden behind this wall before surrendering to the allied forces. Hunted by the imperial and Adilshahi armies, it was here that he had begged the Portuguese to save him, who had instead helped the emperor to track him down.

  Shivaji tries to imagine Aurangzeb’s reaction to this attack and smiles. To the fort’s west is Vasai, a firang settlement around the Arnala Fort, looking towards the ocean. To its east, mountain passes plunge down from the Deccan capital of the Mughals—Aurangabad. From the citadel of the fort one can keep vigil over all the crucial passes from Kasara to Umbraj, usually preferred by the imperial armies to enter the Konkan. It could also be his military stronghold to protect the shipbuilding dockyards scattered around Kalyan.

  He looks back at his men. They are waiting for his orders. He announces, ‘Tonight, lay siege around the hill.’

  Palkar is surprised. Siege craft is an arduous procedure; even a small fort protected by a few unyielding soldiers could hold out for weeks or even months against the massive number of besieging men.

  ‘We neither have the manpower to block the routes nor enough food to last for even two weeks,’ the sarnobat addresses his raja.

  Shivaji finally shares his strategy. ‘The Mughal garrison up there will be anxious to crush us with boulders. Let them think we are laying siege and they are not in immediate danger. On the fifth night, which is a moonless night, we will climb the fort from all sides so that they do not know which end to protect. In the meantime, send our scouts to study the routes going up from villages at the foothills. Ask them to check the slope that climbs from the northwest. It is covered with dense forests of screw pine. The hidden path takes you all the way to the top.’

  The five days of wait are uneventful. Sometimes they can see the small figures of the Mughal soldiers on the ramparts of the fort, but it is too high up to note their actions. On the fifth night, four of the five thousand of Shivaji’s men start climbing the hill that rises a few hundred guj from all sides. The leader of the Marathas along with Tanaji and Yesaji scales it from the west. The air is filled with the sweet smell of pine. The hill is steep but not blindingly dark as thousands of fireflies appear and disappear at random places. The little creatures light up the surrounding forest, but their glow is not bright enough to expose the intruders.

  Shivaji arrives at the base of the fort wall. To his surprise, there are no night guards on the ramparts. The Mughals are too sure of their power. Within moments, they scale the walls. Some men have even reached the ramparts. According to the plan, a hundred of his men blow the trumpets. The ear-splitting calls shake the mountain. The Mughal garrison finally wakes up, utterly confused by the sound. Arrows are showered on the Mughal soldiers clamouring in the fort’s courtyard.

  Shivaji waits as Tanaji and Yesaji hover around him. It takes only an hour before he hears shouts from the ramparts.

  ‘All clear!’ he hears Palkar bellow, ‘They are all killed. The fort is now in our hands.’

  The main Kalyan gate facing the west is flung open and Shivaji clambers like a possessed soul. He knows it is more than a mere victory as he enters the courtyard strewn with bodies. It was here that his father had to surrender and give up. At this very place, his father’s fate as the future servant of the Adilshahi was sealed.

  ‘Remove the Mughal banner!’ Shivaji shouts. ‘Let the saffron flag fly!’

  4

  They have shifted to their new home, Rajgad Fort. It has become Jija bai’s favourite pastime to be in the watchtower rising above the fort’s citadel. The hills of Maval bathe in the beams of the morning sunlight. A sharp, winter breeze blows around the girth of the fort that is more than ten kos in diameter. It rattles across the giant mountain holes swerving around the ridges and then flies through arched, manmade tunnels dug across the mountain’s belly. Today she is waiting for her son to return from the battlefields of Konkan.

  Someone else is waiting too.

  Sayee lies on her bed, trying to bury her sobs. It is difficult to gauge how many hours have passed. The maid has come twice, once to pour some bitter medicine into her mouth and once to feed her lentil soup. But she has lost all appetite. The fever has come and gone three times, making her sweat and shiver. Slimy spit gathers in her mouth. It makes her feel like throwing up. She is terrified. The last time she tried to vomit, she noticed bloody mucus. She does not know if she is drifting to sleep or death. Suddenly, she is woken up by the sound of drums and trumpet calls. He has arrived. Her bed shudders, as though the hill sways beneath her. She can hear shots from the cannon on the ramparts of citadel. It will be a long time before he comes to her. And she is prepared; he may not stay with her and instead go to his chamber. She will not hold him back. She has made up her mind. She will not make him unhappy by whimpering or crying. She will not show her crumpling self to him.

  It is late in the night when Shivaji walks past the queens’ palaces of Rajgad Fort. In the evening, his other wives had come to receive him at the main entrance of the citadel. Draped in colourful silk saris, they performed aarti with eagerness and devotion, to ward off the malefic influences of the evil eye. They had giggled and nudged each other with their elbows covered with embellished bands of gold while impishly throwing glances at each other. In their eagerness, some had scrambled while holding large gilded trays filled with wick lamps, burning camphor, conch shells filled with water, tiny silver containers of vermillion and lit incense sticks. He had waited patiently till all seven of them repeated the same ritual. Their demureness had occasionally been overruled by their youth as they tried to lock their kohl-smeared eyes with him, gazing at him longingly. He had responded to them while trying hard to hide the shadows of guilt.

  He reaches Sayee’s chamber with a heart heavy with sorrow. She was already succumbing to her illness when he had last seen her. He feels miserable thinking of how she will look, her body ravaged by tuberculosis. The room is lit brightly with several lamps. She lies on the bed, still as a log of wood. He goes near and gazes at her. Her untied hair has fallen over her chest. She stares at him, her limpid eyes large and moist, her nose ring gleaming with pearls and rubies. He scans her face to gauge the extent of the havoc that her sickness has wrought. Or, perhaps, to unveil the mask of death that shrouds her pretty face. Or to measure the time that remains. Unexpectedly, she flashes a smile. It reminds him of tiny vinca flowers clinging to life even on dry, rocky and barren earth. Her eyes sparkle with joy and then suddenly the room is filled with waves of her girlish laughter.

  He stands there, feeling foolish. Has she caught his eyes hunting for the impending doom?

  ‘Was the Kalyan girl really beautiful?’ He hears his wife’s question, her voice mocking yet stern and her eyes full of mischief.

  ‘I have not seen her,’ he fumbles with words, and
then bows to his queen.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1

  As the sun rises above the city of Ujjain, summer breeze from the sandy desert of Rajasthan blows eastward and sweeps across the battlefield. A nervous Maharaja Jaswant Singh Rathod waits for Aurangzeb’s army to appear at the southern skyline. He has been told that his sole task at Ujjain is to scare off Aurangzeb. He will show off his army of thirty thousand cavalry and flutter thousands of imperial banners in the air.

  Just two days before, Jaswant had been told that Aurangzeb had not taken a long halt before crossing the river Narmada as he had previously planned. At Burhanpur, Murad Baksh had joined Aurangzeb from Gujarat. The brothers and their armies had met on the northern banks of the Narmada. People present at the occasion told him that the allied forces looked like an ocean of troopers, their march purposeful and resolute. The enormous cavalcade had arrived a few kos south of Ujjain, a week before it was anticipated. Jaswant had acted fast. His military formation stood cramped between two hillocks, on an island protected by ditches filled with water. For the past two days, a thousand men had been deployed to bring buckets of water from the Shipra river to fill the trenches dug around the battlefield.

  The area is muddy and slushy. Jaswant has put his army in a strong defensive position. He plans to unleash his cavalry once the advancing army of Aurangzeb and Murad slows down by the manmade mire.

  A few kos south from where Jaswant and his army await, Aurangzeb, sitting in the howdah of his elephant, is wary but not worried. Dara bhai has thrown the dice first. Aurangzeb is cognizant of Dara bhai’s trusted warrior, Maharaja Jaswant Singh Rathod, and his thirty thousand men. Aurangzeb calculates that he has two things working in his favour: Jaswant has not commanded such a large army in the recent past, and Qasim Khan, the powerful mansabdar who has come with Jaswant, hates Dara bhai’s liberal views. There is more: Jaswant does not know what modern, lightweight artillery can do. Continuous battles have taught Aurangzeb newer tactics and their impacts.

  As his elephant sways beneath him, Aurangzeb appraises the military situation. The enemy’s battle formation—the core, the advance guard, the left and the right wings—has been done conservatively. Jaswant’s army stands on an island, surrounded by a freshly dug ditch filled with water. The core of Jaswant’s army is formed by his few thousand Rajput cavalrymen from his own kingdom of Jodhpur. Two thousand of them are around Jaswant’s elephant. Ten thousand cavalrymen are placed in the advanced guard to face Aurangzeb’s approaching cavalry. Jaswant’s left and right wing have just four to five thousand horsemen, making his advance guard the strongest part of his military formation. Aurangzeb calls it heavy-in-the-front tactic. He has faced such situations and knows how to tackle them. Watching the dense mass of horsemen around him, Aurangzeb considers his battle formation. His advance guard has eight thousand horsemen led by his first son Mohammad Sultan, his right wing has five thousand horsemen under his second son Muazzam, his left wing consists of another five thousand horseman led by Murad. The rest of the cavalry of several thousand stands around him. By buying over soldiers from the Adilshahi and uniting forces with Murad, he has outnumbered Jaswant. But the real power lies somewhere else. His conservative battle formation is infused with extra power that is beyond Jaswant’s knowledge. Several thousand archers and musketeers back up his advance guard. His scouts have studied the battlefield and identified a small hillock. His artillery will be fired from an elevated position. It is also manned by firangs who have worked for Mir Jumla. Even though Mir has been called away by the emperor, he has left behind his experts to serve Aurangzeb who had saved his family.

  Maharaja Jaswant Singh Rathod glances at his advance guard. The horsemen, dressed in ornamental armour, hold huge imperial banners made of embroidered silk. The moss-green flags flutter and show off a rising sun partially eclipsed by a couching, angry lion about to break into a roar. Thousands of those lions and suns make Jaswant’s heart pound with excitement and help him forget the power of the enemy, albeit for a moment. He narrows his eyes and watches as Aurangzeb’s army slowly appears on the southern horizon. But when he sees the sea of troopers gliding down the gentle slopes like evil shadows of ominous rainclouds sweeping across the earth, his bones turn cold. The mass looks energetic, despite the fact that they have travelled one hundred and fifty kos north from Aurangabad to reach the southwestern side of Ujjain.

  Jaswant waits for Aurangzeb’s advance guard to move ahead and fall into his trap. Instead, the earth starts shuddering with explosions. The shots are being fired from an elevated position such that they land in the midst of Jaswant’s advance guard, causing acute infernos. Aurangzeb’s gunners are swift, their shots precise, not wasted, never going wayward, and never exploding mid-air. Under the cover of this barrage, Aurangzeb’s archers and musketeers move ahead. The sky turns dark with arrows flying northwards while the projectiles tear through the chain armour of Jaswant’s horsemen. Aurangzeb’s musketeers move like lightning, pulling triggers with their modern barrel-loading weapons, the flintlocks. Chaos spreads as Aurangzeb’s orders his cavalry to burst forth. The air reverberates with harsh sounds of trumpets, drumbeats and piercing battle cries of ‘Deen! Deen! Deen!’

  On the other hand, the Rajputs seem ready to sacrifice their lives for Jaswant. Their deaths would elevate the status of their beloved motherland, Jodhpur. How can one compare that to the vassalage of the Mughal? They break away from their lines and gallop towards Aurangzeb’s artillerymen, and start slaughtering the enemy gunners. Unfortunately for them, the firangs are highly trained in sword combat. They slaughter Jaswant’s impulsive soldiers and keep firing. Aurangzeb notices that Jaswant’s horsemen from his left and right wing desperately flee the battlefield, their horses stumbling and falling while crossing the water-filled ditch. He laughs as Jaswant’s men try to escape from their own trap.

  There is more to come—shame and humiliation. Jaswant has watched Aurangzeb’s men come in waves, quick and forceful, towards the core of his battle formation. The imperial banners have fallen on the ground and enemy horsemen have ridden over the rising suns and couching lions. Jaswant’s men ask him to climb down from his elephant for his own safety. He is swift to dismount as the mahout tries to steady the beast. He takes a horse but fails to see a lone enemy horseman break the ring of his guards. Suddenly, an excruciating pain sears through his body. Blood gushes out from his right arm. He has been shot by an arrow. His guards scramble and kill the attacker. Unfazed, Jaswant wants to gallop straight into the ranks of the advancing enemy. He does not want to be so defeated. But someone catches the bridle of his horse and drags him out of the battlefield, overpowered, injured and filled with rage. He remains alive only to be overcome, to witness the enemy grab his artillery, war animals and weapons.

  The battle is over in a day.

  Qasim Khan has disappeared along with his five thousand men. Jaswant’s war animals and weapons are missing. It is only in the evening, after Aurangzeb’s army has marched ahead and disappeared beyond the northern horizon, that a vanquished Jaswant comes out of his hideout and visits the battlefield. He watches in horror as countless vultures glide across the orange sky without flapping their wings—kites of death. The twenty-eight-year-old imperial commander of seven thousand horses is crestfallen. The raja of Jodhpur walks gingerly, his gaze fixed on the ground littered with the dead. More than ten thousand of his men have been slaughtered. The terrain, one hundred and fifty kos south of Agra and a few kos southwest of Ujjain city, near Dharmat village, is sodden with blood. His eyes scan the western horizon. The air stinks of rotting flesh. The smell is bound to attract packs of wild scavengers. Soon they will rip his soldiers’ bodies apart.

  2

  Aurangzeb breathes in deeply, filling his lungs with a cool breeze. Thousands of his soldiers frolic in the muddy river Yamuna. They have not bathed for weeks. Tonight his men will feast and rest. Goats, cattle, oil, firewood and bags of rice have arrived from villages across the Yamuna from h
is sympathizers.

  Aurangzeb has a job to get done. He moves to the edge of his camp where his Muslim officers have started forming a large semicircle around a wooden platform. His son Sultan, brother Murad and his uncle Shaista have already arrived. Aurangzeb notices a few men standing behind his uncle and whispering to each other. Some gesticulate to draw his son’s and his brother’s attention. On seeing him, they stop talking and are all ears for him. He swaggers unhurriedly, as if deliberately pondering over the decision he has already made. The battle ahead is not an ordinary one. For the wars fought to expand the imperial territory, he needed their strength and skill. For the battle of succession that looms ahead, he needs their passion. The men bow deeply, once, twice and then thrice.

  Aurangzeb swiftly climbs the platform, his eyes sweeping over his men in a quick glance. His gaze wanders beyond the gathering. Far beyond, towards the northwest, a bunch of Arjuna trees with dusty green canopies rise more than twenty guj above the ground. Beyond those trees he knows that Dara bhai’s army has gathered in large numbers. He starts speaking, in Urdu that is mixed with Farsi and Arabic for all to understand.

  ‘All of us gathered here are warriors, fearless, dauntless and ready to spill our blood for the Empire. We have done that in the past, many times over. We are born to die as martyrs. But we have a chance to depart this life in a more meaningful, more divine way. A death of a mujahideen beckons us. A death of a holy warrior! We will slay for a higher cause, get slain for a higher reason. We must take our war to another level. We are the chosen ones to breathe in the vicinity of the divine.’