The following is from the book titled “Creative pasts: historical memory and identity in western India, 1700-1960” By Prachi Deshpande, pg’s 57-60:
“The ballad begins with Jijabai wistfully wishing that the Sinhagad fort were back in the Marathas’ control. She summons Shivaji from Rajgad and bids him to play a game with her. After Jijabai wins, he begs her to ask something of him. She asks for Sinhagad, her favorite fort.
Facing Poona, beside Jejuri
Stands the fort of Sinhagad
Conquer it for me
I will pray for your kingdom. (33)
When Shivaji entrusts Tanaji with the task of recapturing the fort from the Mughals, Tanaji is busy with his son’s wedding preparations.
Turmeric laid out for the fifth day, the wedding set for the sixth
His child’s wedding all set up, and here come the orders for Sinhagad
Rayba’s wedding was halted, Tanaji began rallying his chiefs
The eighty-year-old Shelarmama warned him, my dear Subedar Tanaji
Those who go on a Sinhagad campaign rarely come back (40-41)
Unfazed, Tanaji continues to prepare for the assault. As he is about to leave, his son stops him in fear, and Tanaji assures him of his return. At the capital, Raigad, before the campaign, Jijabai blesses Tanaji with wealth and success, and he says to Shivaji:
I leave now for Sinhagad, please take care of Rayba
If I return I will perform his wedding, if I don’t
You should do it for me and give him my ancestral lands…
Uphold the Malusare’s lands and honor. (42)
At Sinhagad, Tanaji uses the ghorpad or mountain lizard with its tough claws to scale the fort, as was the practice, but this time it is unsuccessful. Enraged, he declares:
Twenty-seven forts I have taken
Never has the ghorpad failed me
But I am a Maratha’s son
And I do not fear death. (49)
Finally, he wins the fort back for Marathas, but dies fighting. Shivaji, shattered by his death, personally escorts Tanaji’s body back to his village and consoles his son:
“Don’t fear, my son, Shivaji himself has died
Henceforth I will be your Tanaji subedar.” (55)
The ballad then describes how Shivaji fulfills Tanaji’s last wish by performing Rayba’s wedding himself and installing him in his father’s office, “upholding the Malusare lands and honor.” It ends with the declaration
Brave men should listen to this powada of a brave man!
Both the singer and listener will acquire great merit.
Tanaji appears in the powada as an ordinary man with family attachments and duties, but also a brave and loyal general who gave his life for the Maratha cause. His life and this episode were a template for the ideal warrior of the Maratha armies, and a vehicle for ensuring the peasant masses’ greater identification with the objectives of those armies. These ordinary warrior-peasants and their concerns also figure prominently in the song. Before heading out to Rajgad, Tanaji begins assembling a force of 12,000 men, who are armed only with “sticks and sickles stuck at their waists.” Tanaji doles out cash to properly fit them out, but many of them still worry about whether the local shepherd who made warm cloaks for them will harass their wives when they are away. At Rajgad fort, the soldiers greedily devour an enormous meal Jijabai lays out for them before the campaign.
Twelve thousand cups and twelve thousand saucers
Twelve thousand plates and a freshly cooked meal
Tanaji saw it all and was overwhelmed
Eighteen courses, eighteen vegetables, everyone was served at once
Half of them stood up and began to rush
One asked for bread, another for sweets
One asked for vegetables, the other for lentils
With all this rush, the mother Jijabai was exhausted. (42-43)
Even though we may safely assume that Jijabai did not personally serve the entire army, she appears here as a loving and concerned mother not just to Shivaji but also to the wider Maratha population. As a seventeenth-century recruitment poster, this description of the soldiers’ good treatment works very well. Jijabai is prominent in a number of powadas and is as melodramatic in her worry for her son’s safety as she is unwavering in her confidence in his project. Almost a human avatar of the Bhavani encountered in bakhars, she could simultaneously symbolize the honorable purpose behind Shivaji’s activities and underscores his humanity and ordinariness to the people who heard the ballad. Shivaji certainly appears as the ideal ruler, who cares for his warriors and their families and most importantly, keeps his word. The powada projects him quiet literally as a leader to die for, but he is simultaneously rendered human and accessible; he is, ultimately, a loving son who plays games with his mother and is eager to do her bidding.”
Parts of the book can be read at:
dharmayuddha 