Lost Fingers & Lost Glory

By Ritesh Shirpurkar

(On Shahista Khan losing his fingers and his prestige - year 1664 C.E.)

The monsoon had set in furiously that year,

And all military action ceased to appear...

Or so thought Shahista Khan,

The Amir-Ul-Umra* of the Mughal clan.

Aurangzeb’s own uncle,

and brother of Mumtaz Mahal.

Also, the chief of Deccan # ,

Appointed to beat Shivaji’s rising aspirations.

With rains pouring in heavily that year,

He settled down with his whole army in Poona’s Lal Mahal $ .

At the centre of the Mughal cantonment,

Surrounded by a camp of ten thousand soldiers.

Nobody would fault the Khan,

For thinking that he was safe as anybody can.

But Shivaji had other plans-

To surprise him at night,

And take him out by his own hands.

Shivaji knew Lal Mahal,

Like the back of his hand.

For he had grown up there,

And spent his childhood in the Mahal.

With a band of select few hundred soldiers,

He planned the most daring act of his career.

Disguised as a marriage retinue,

The few hundred entered Poona cantonment without the enemy getting a clue.

They stayed low till darkness set in,

To execute what they had planned in a night so grim.

Dark was the night on which they thus set upon,

And even darker were the clouds of ill fate,

That hung on the enemy at hand.

A few marathas entered the Mahal’s drum room,

And silenced the soldiers guarding there, to their doom,

No great alarm could now be raised,

And a major part of the enemy thus remained unawares.

Shivaji with a select few soldiers,

Entered the Lal Mahal from the back door.

A few Khan’s soldiers guarding there were silenced without much efforts,

A wall however now barred their progress further.

It was of course not there earlier,

The Khan had made it to construct,

To separate his own chambers from the servants there.

So, a hole was made with pick axes,

Which aroused a few enemy soldiers to their senses.

They were however quickly tackled,

By the marathas who sneaked in though the aperture.

Shivaji now entered the Khan’s chamber...

A maze of drapes and tapestry,

Surrounding the bed of the Moghul peer.

Shivaji cut through the maze to reach the Khan’s bed,

An alert female however doused the room’s lantern,

To delay Shivaji’s dash to the bed.

The Khan was already up due to the din in the Mahal,

And the darkness in the room gave him a split second per chance.

Shivaji slashed at him in darkness,

Guessing his presence at a window ready to escape.

The Khan so managed to save his life,

But lost his fingers to Shivaji’s fright.

Such was then the Khan’s plight,

Surprised in his very bed,

Surrounded by the Moghul might.

In the commotion that ensued,

The Marathas cut down anybody who came in their purview.

One such was the Khan’s son,

Who lost his life along with a dozen.

The Mahal now sufficiently alarmed,

Shivaji instinctively knew that it was time to wind up the plan.

He retreated the same way that he had come,

With his band of brave soldiers who guarded his return + .

As if the nightmare was not enough for the enemy,

The retreating Marathas taunted the guards –

“Is this how you keep a vigil, really?”

And made them beat the drums loudly to create a huge din.

The noise and the confusion that ensued,

Made their retreat go unchecked and unseen.

Next day the Khan summoned his Generals,

And sneered at them like a high bred Moghul,

“I thought you had all died saving me!

When I saw Shivaji in my chamber, pouncing on me!!”

The news reached the Emperor at Delhi,

It was great insult to the prestige of the royalty.

The emperor promptly transferred Shahista Khan,

To the province of Bengal.

The beleaguered and bitter Khan left for that province,

Leaving behind a nightmare that the Deccan was to him.

The Mughal soldiers now thought of Shivaji as a sorcerer,

How else they discussed, He could accomplish such a superhuman wonder.

The British wondered whether he had wings,

That he could be at so many places in time so little.

But the people of Deccan now regarded him as their deliverer,

From ages of subjugation and a survival so grim.

------------------------------------------

*Commander of commanders – a title usually reserved for family members of Mughals

# Deccan – roughly corresponding to today’s Maharashtra

$ In the heart of Pune city, at the confluence of Mula and Mutha rivers

+ Shivaji, with his soldiers returned to Sinhagad, located to the west of Pune, in the western ghats.

By Ritesh Shirpurkar