31. The Queen: Riding in the Moonlight

We set out for Kalpi; five-six kos off the town, at a place called Kheda, we decided to stay the night. There is a tamarind grove to the east of the village, just outside the boundaries. We ate our supper there, and slept. In the first hour of dawn, suddenly horses galloped down the road, and the noise wakened us. We too started and followed them. I asked a fellow: whose army is this? where is it heading? He said: We are in the service of his highness Peshwe.  The lady of Jhansi is with us, there was a big battle at Charkhari. But the God did not grant us victory, we were beaten, and are now on the way back to Kalpi.

We followed after them in the moonlight. The army proceeded ahead of us. Two kos outside Kalpi, we came upon a well. I and uncle stopped there, to draw and drink some  water, and to catch breath. At that point four-five horsemen rode up there. The lady of Jhansi, dressed in a pathan's robe, was among them. She was very thirsty, so she asked without getting down from the horse: Who are you?

We recognised her and stood up quickly to say: we are brahmins. What may be your command? She too recognised us then, and got down from the horse, and came up and sat on the well's parapet. She spoke about what happened briefly, then said; I am thirsty.

So I got hold of the rope and the pitcher to draw the water. The lady said: you are a pundit, I would not drink water drawn by you, let me do it myself. Saying so, she took the rope from my hand, and drew the water, and drank from the pitcher.

Then she spoke: I am a lesser woman, a widow. But I was a proud Hindu, hence I was prompted to do the duty. But the God did not grant me success. We fought a big battle at Charkhari, but to no avail. Very soon Kalpi would be fought over. You are poor brahmins, you can not even ride a horse. Why do you go there?

We replied: Kalpi has a lot of southerners. We hope to earn some money there. Then we plan to cross the Jumna and head to Brahmavart for a bath in Ganges.

So be it, said the lady, and asked us to see her after reaching Kalpi. Then she rode off. 

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Here I am ending this serial excepting. Godse's book doesn't end at this point, he tells us about the battles that took place at Kalpi and Gwalior, and how the Queen died a heroic death.  His and his uncle's journey continued. They went to Brahmavart, Ayodhya, Kashi, Lucknow, and then looped back to Jhansi. Then they started on the return journey, and reached Nashik after crossing Narmada. Then back to Varsai.

Godse is no `skilled' writer, in the sense he is not good at being lucid. At many places, the narrative confuses you. (And the language he uses is ancient; it's pre-Raj Marathi. That''s a handicap for me. In the later generations, when writing flourished in Marathi, there must have been a great influence of English. But Godse had no English, and his wrote the language of the medieval Maharashtra.)

Still, he wrote a great book, thanks to one attribute: honesty. This is not to say that his account is always accurate. He was no historian, and when he writes about the war of 1857 and events in Jhansi, he essentially reproduces hearsay.  But when he is writing about the self,  his own persona shows through completely. In recounting personal experiences, there is no attempt to garnish, or to exaggerate. He may not be revealing everything; but whatever he reveals, he reveals with most effective candour.  One example should suffice: somewhere along the Ganges, he came to a place where, he tells us, women bathed in the holy river without a stitch of cloth on, without minding if men were around. Therefore, says the writer: "(We) could have an extraordinary pleasure of the eye". And this is written artlessly, with no style.  

Godse was someone who had had no idea of the western enlightenment, of how the world had changed. He was a man of the 18th century. 1857 marked the end of old India, it can be said.  In Godse, we have a narrator/witness of that end-period, a narrator who himself belonged to the era that was ending. The most interesting character in Godse's book is Godse himself.

One day I plan to translate the complete book; provided a publisher is found. For now, good-bye.

30. Jhansi: Hangings and Auctions

On the eighth day, the English government had it announced that that people may return home, without any fear. Let the corpses be taken away and disposed. Water tankers were brought to douse the fires. Bonfires were lit at the junctions of streets, and corpses were cremated. Pieces of furniture from the houses were taken out to make the bonfires.

After hearing the announcement, four-five of us stepped out to wander. Some stalls of food-stuffs, opium, tobacco, etc had been put up in front of the city governor's office. We bought some rice, tobacco-n-lime. Wind carried the stench of burning flesh around the city. It was very tiring (depressing).

The Queen had escaped, but those who were caught were brought back to the city and hanged. The lady's father, Moropant Tambe, had had his thigh slashed by the sword while fleeing. The thigh had been cut deep, still he ran off on horseback and reached Datiya town by the day-break. It was enemy's town, but he had nowhere else to go. 

His clothes blood-soaked, he reached the town-gate. A coppersmith took him home and later informed the (local) king. The king put Tambe in jail, and handed him over to the English.

He was brought to Jhansi and hanged in the afternoon. Searches were going on in the city, the culprits were hanged forthwith.

There were auctions (of the loot and the royal wealth) every day. Sinde (Scindias), Holkars, Gaiwads etc bought up elephants, horses, camels. Likewise, the royals picked up big pots and pans (from the palace kitchens).

I made a sense of all this: The men of Bundelkhand were impotent. Therefore, or by the virtue of this land, the women here were adulterous.Jhansi was the capital city, and looking at the history -- the affair of Bhangi woman, etc -- this city was awash with sin.

Now the God had willed it, on account of Laxmibai, purified.

I and uncle talked at night. We decided to go to Chitrakoot. 

29. Where Woman Be In Command, King But A Kid

The (English) government apprehended that white soldiers, being robust/bullies, would ravish the women. So every white soldier was accompanied by couple of Indian southerner. The Indians had orders to shoot the white if he so much as touched the women. Hence, there wasn't much rowdyism with women.

That day, after the sunset, we returned to our original quarters. A Karhad-origin Brahmin called Karkare, around 60-65 years old, and his 25 years old son had been shot down by the soldiers in the morning because the two took too long to get out of their house. Their respective wives -- mother-in-law and daughter-in-law -- sat by the dead bodies all day; but as the evening advanced, they were scared. They came to our place and recounted what had happened.  We seven-eight men from the neighbourhood gathered and went to the house. Pyre was set in the backyard -- where (the sacred) basil plant grows. There wasn't enough wood, so the furniture pieces in the house were broken up and added to the pyre. Thus we cremated the Brahmin and his son, and brought the women to our place. What pollution the death was to be for outsiders in that time in Jhansi. Nobody was untouchable.

Too many men died the next day. On being spotted by the English soldiers, they hid in a haystack. The English set it on fire, the men burned down. Several others jumped into wells, but the English watched from above, and fired down whenever a head bobbed up out of the water. The massacre and looting went on for three days.

Streets had turned into graveyards. But the killings ceased after the third day.

There was hardly anything to eat. On the seventh day, it being the summer, it was too hot.  So I had a bath with cold water and did my puja. We had famished, and I despaired, thinking, o God, with what intention we had set out from our homes, and what peril-to-life was visited upon us. Men's endeavour counts for nothing, fate always prevails. An old Sanskrit couplet kept coming back to me:

Where a woman be in command, the king but a kid, and minister an illiterate/ There hope of survival is scarce, no chance of holding onto money at any rate.

The couplet had come true in Jhansi.

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.