28. Time of No Desire

We went to Mandavgane's place. We asked what was the arrangement to save oneself from the enemy's soldiers. He said there was a big deserted house nearby, its walls mostly collapsed, and overgrown with monsoon-time grass. Inside, he said, there were very big concealed recesses, where three-four people could hide at a time. The narrow entrance to the house was now built up, so there was no way to enter for an outsider. It would be safe.

We spent the night in Mandavgane's house. The city was burning. The scenes that I saw from the terrace made me indescribably desolate.

 Before the dawn, we rose and did our ablutions, to be ready to move into the deserted house. Suddenly there was a gunshot very close to the house,  Mandavganes hid inside, in the darkness of the house. My entire body from the throat down felt parched; legs, as if, dissolved. I and the uncle went forward, there were two English soldiers. We prostrated ourselves on the earth before them and said: we are not from Jhansi. We came from the South, to make some money. Spare our lives.

They figured out, from our speech, that we were not from this country. Then they asked for money and rifled our belongings. Rs 250 in coin were wrapped into a  kerchief bundle, it fell down and made noise. The soldiers took it and left us (alive), by our luck.

We went to the deserted house. The recesses were full of men and women. Outside, hundreds of muskets were going off.  It was very hot, it being the month of Vaishakh. Around noon, I was terribly thirsty.  There was a lull in the musket fire, so I ventured out to the well outside and drew a pitcher of water. As I downed it, there was a big explosion nearby. I dropped the pitcher and darted off, looking for the nearest recess with some room. Two women were hiding in one; I entered it, the women directed me. 

Three of us sat crammed in that place. Our breasts touched. The woman next to me must about 18-20, I was myself 30-33. But we both feared for life, and hence felt no desire. 

 

27. Queen Leaves Jhansi

Towers of the fort offerred panorama of a pathetic city. Houses were on fire. Cattle roamed the streets, crying out for water and feed. Hundreds of corpses were strewn around. 

At dusk, the Queen ordered that fort gates be opened; those who wanted to escape into the city, could go. I and uncle too left, and reached Mandavgane's place.

Around midnight, the Queen left the fort  with 1,500 troops. They ran into the English, and sword-fight started. Hundreds were killed, the Queen lost 400. The Queen rode a white horse. She was dressed in a men's attire and wore an armour of mesh and carried a sword under her arm. The 12-year-old adopted son was strapped to the back. 

As she passed along, the English chased after. The Queen broke through their ranks and galloped away. Most of the troops with her perished in the fight, she was left with only a handful of men and her maid (who too rode a horse). They set our for Kalpi. The English horsemen went after them a mile out, but turned around as nothing could be seen in the darkness of the night. 

The Queen reached Kalpi by the next nightfall. When she woke up in the morning, she had her period, which made her (momentarily) untouchable. What a condition she found herself in! Words fail me. She hadn't had a meal for three days. Apart from the sari and blouse she had on, she had no other feminine clothes. She had no money. No wonder she was in tears; those who saw her wept uncontrollably. 

26. Massacre of Jhansi

The English entered the city, and started shooting all the men at sight. Halwai Pura was set on fire; the killings began. The men between the ages of five and eighty began to be smoked out and killed. Some warriors of the Queen army returned downtown, found barber and shaved off beards, whiskers, etc, to take on non-soldier like guise. Those who could not find a barber, shaved themselves. Some disguised themselves as monks. Thousands of Englishmen entered the city from all directions and killed left, right and centre. The chaos could not be imagined. Bhide family kept a small park in central Jhansi. Around 20,000 men and women gathered there. When the English soldiers arrived to kill, those inside lay prostrate before them, and pleaded: we are subjects/civilians. There is no warrior among us, spare our lives. The English took pity on them, and left after putting guard at the entrance to the compound.

The invaders went from house to house. Men in the house would be beaten up, tortured, until they revealed the hidden money. If anything was found, the men would be spared. But then another gang of Englishmen would land, and killed the men of the house upon not finding anything to loot.

But the English didn't kill the women. Yet, some ladies from good families thought the enemy would convert/rape them: they jumped into backyard wells and killed themselves. In some houses women stood between their husbands and the barrel of enemy's gun; and were shot. The men, nevertheless, would be shot after the wife fell dead.

However, the English didn't kill women intentionally. Keeping a distance, they would ask the ladies to remove jewellery, and would ransack the house.  Walls would be tapped with sticks; sometimes a part would be broken, to find a hidden pitcher of money. Floors too were dug up.

Thirsty animals -- horses, elephants, camels, dogs -- roamed the streets, crying out.

  

25. The Breach

On the night of the eleventh day of the battle, a shell fell on a fully-grown elephant which was tethered at the front entrance. It singed his back. Some shells hit the menagerie, which housed some exotic birds, mynas, peacocks, other animals. The poor beasts cried out and cried out: all of them perished. It was a  disaster.

On the morning of the 12th day,  the English army had its men stack up countless piles of water-soaked hay against the southern city-wall. Using them as stairs, thousands of  English troops climbed the wall. Those guarding the southern side panicked, and fled. English now had no obstruction.

The Queen heard this, and descended from the fort at the head of a force of a thousand-and-half long-serving Muslim/Arab soldiers. Soon, they came face to face with the English.

A hand-to-hand battle broke out, blades flashed. The only right simile would be Mahabharatian war. The English lost heart, and ran off eastwards. They entered some houses, and started shooting at the Queen's Muslim force. The Muslims had no means of returning the fire. An old general, a septuagenarian, went to the Queen and said to her holding her hand: Your highness, if you were to advance, a bullet will kill you. There is no glory in dying a whore's death. The English are sheltering behind house walls. Let's return to the fort and lock ourselves in,  let the God then guide us on future course of action. 

24. Shell in the Mirror Palace

Tatya Tope and Raosaheb arrived on the south-east side of the city on the tenth day, and started bombarding the English. Tope fought at his hardest. Hand-to-hand fight started. It was accompanied by the racket of war-drums and pipes. Our forces were about to win the battle, but the fate intervened: the wind changed its direction and

the smoke (of guns) started blowing into Peshwa's army. The English advanced, with their guns. Their cavalry boldly charged, without fear of life. Peshwa's men panicked and took to heels. Tope and others too abandoned the guns and fled the battle field. The English returned to their camp triumphant the next morning. 

The English launched an all-out assault. The townsmen had spent the previous night sleepless. When the battle entered the eleventh day, spies brought news that the enemy is running out of ammunition, it won't last a day longer. The Queen, armed with sword, standing on the rampart, handed rewards to the gunners. She herself lighted the cannon-fuses sometimes. 

The English guns targeted the residential quarters in the fort. On the second-floor of the royal palace, there was a hall with a permanent decoration; for Ganesh, and for nav-ratr. It was a mirror hall, really: walls and the ceiling were lined with Lucknow-made mirrors. Also, there were chandeliers. A shell fell on the roof, smashed through the roof  and came down to explode with a big noise. Shrapnel flew around, four men died. Not a mirror was left un-shattered.  

However, though the shells fell on the roof, they did not damage the palace. Only, they burned through the ceilings in between to hit the lower floors. So the roof and the  ceilings became sieve-like.

But the shells kept coming, and we the inmates were scared.  Everybody gathered in a room which was felt to be safer. Sixty-four persons stood there in that small room; including the slave-maids. We sweated, due to the summer heat, and due to the fear for life. There wasn't room enough to breath. After a few hours, Queen's gunners hit the English position, and shut down their guns. Thus the fortune kept swinging.

That night, I prayed to Lord Vaijnath, our village deity. When I dropped off for a bit. I had a dream: We, a mass of some 200 men, were crossing the river. When in the middle, suddenly water gushed down, and we almost drowned.  Then a wrestler-like, fair complexioned  load-carrier, standing in the mid-current, said to us: Fear not, I have come to save you. Give me your hands, I would take you to the bank.

Then a gun boomed, and I woke up. I told the uncle about the dream. He said/we understood, that we would survive.  

23. Catcher of Shells

On the fifth day of the battle, British artillery shut down a gun on the western face of the fort. Their shells demolished the gun-platform too. It was necessary to rebuild it.  After the midnight, some masons were brought.  One of them lay down flat on the tower, so as not to be sighted by British gunners. A human assembly line was formed from the foot of the tower, to pass bricks, etc, up. They rebuilt the platform and put the gun back. This gun started shelling the enemy's position, and shut down two English guns.

The English barrage upon the fort peaked on the seventh day.  They targeted Shankar Fort at day-break.  The English have binoculars, one can see the whole fort through them, and whereabouts of men working inside. They cost a couple of thousand rupees, or more. Through one such binocular, the enemy saw that there was only one source of water in the fort. They started shelling it. Four Brahmin water-carriers died. There was a gun-powder factory inside the fort, at Tamarind ground. A shell fell there, and the gunpowder caught fire. There was smoke everywhere, even in the palace down below. Nothing could be seen. When the smoke cleared, it was found that some thirty men and seven-eight women had died of burns. Another forty were injured.

There was no water for bath in the fort that day. Queen's gunners then swung the guns to aim at British position, and shut down a couple of enemy's guns. Thus, reverses and triumphs continued.

The battle became too intense on the eighth day. At night, it was as if the skies had opened up; enemy's guns spewed red balls of fire over the city. People left the houses to save themselves.  On the morrow, the Queen was verily worried. Jhansi forces needed help from outside badly, Raosaheb Peshwa's troops were yet to arrive.

She consulted Dhekre, the priest, and Pandit Upasni, and had a hundred Brahmins perform anushthan at  Ganesh temple , so that Raosaheb may reach quickly.  While the anushthan  went on, the Queen dozed off awhile at night. In her dream, she saw a beautiful married woman, fair, with a straight nose and broad forehead, bejeweled, wearing a red sari and white silk blouse, standing on the ramparts. She was catching the shells with bare hands. While at it, she spoke to the Queen, showing her hands which were blackened by ash, "But for me, who would catch these shells?"

  

  

For those who read this blog: There is no update lately, because I am busy with something. Would restart updating from second/third week of June.

22. Shells Like Cricket Balls

The battle began on a moonless night. British guns began firing. Shells started landing in the city. It brought untold misery to the people. Many civilians were killed. Some houses caught fire, and tankers were brought to douse flames. 

British shells fell in great numbers on the fort too. A shell would hit the terrace of the palace, and explode. Splinters would kill four-five people. The same shell would then fall through the terrace on to the lower floor, blowing some more splinters and killing some more. It would further burn through and fall down on lower floor and blow up; shrapnels would kill many more.

Britishers spent a lot of these fort-buster shells. People estimated that they cost five hundred rupees apiece.  A couple of unexploded shells were weighed, they were at least 60-65 sher. Thus, the battle hotted up.

A community kitchen was opened for those who had come from the south.

On the third day of the battle, British gunners targeted the cannon on the southern tower of the fort.  No gunner from Queen's army could stand the enemy fire. But then the fort gunners from the west-side tower started firing, they hit the best gunner in the British army. The Queen rewarded him with a silver bracelet. 

At night, we would go to one of the towers to watch British shells flying into the city. The shells were heavy, but looked only red and small. During the day, because of the light, shells could not be spotted until they hit, so this caused very many deaths. But at night, the red shells, like cricket balls, could be seen clearly. One felt it would hit him, but it would fall several hundred paces off eventually. 

Thus the battle progressed day and night.  

 

21. Vaishakh

The British first secured Bundel-khand. Then they moved on Jhansi. Their army set up camps to the west of the city, and a horseman was sent with a letter for the Queen.

The letter said: The Queen herself should come out and meet the British officers. She shouldn't bring troops along. If she did not come within two days, she should be ready for the battle.

The Queen sent a reply: My delegation will meet you. But I being a lady, would not come out. Captain Gordon handed over this state to us, with papers. I maintain a small army for security of the province, and a few cannons. We never think of going to war with the British, whatever you may have been told.

The British then sent out dispatches everywhere, summoning forces. Some troops were sent towards Kalpi, so as to stop Peshwa and Tatya Topi, and not allow them to come to the Queen's aid.

The Queen too sent a few horsemen to Raosaheb at Kalpi with a message: We are going into war, we count on your help. You may attack the British from outside. 

Raosaheb agreed.

 The British had it announced in the villages surrounding Jhansi that there will be a slaughter in the city for three days once it fell. Everyone above the age of five will be put to death. So no one should venture into Jhansi in this period.

Then came the month of Chaitra. The Queen held a haldi-kunku . Married women of the gentry families were invited. It was a big affair.

Marwaris and other money-lenders in Jhansi sent their families to Gwalior, along with the cash. Then the month of Vaishakh was upon us. British forces gathered outside the city wall. Their camps dotted the area, fires were lit. British had about sixty thousand troops, plus some thirty thousand camp followers. The city was now encircled.