your bridge home
True Valor
Taking the fort meant destroying the armoury, and destroying the armoury meant somebody getting inside it.
The Company killed her husband and took her kingdom in 1772. She came back and took it off them in 1780.
And in between she spent eight years doing the thing almost nobody does. Preparing properly.
Velu Nachiyar was born in 1730, the only child of the Ramnad royal house.
And she was educated in a way that matters to everything after. Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and, in some accounts, French.
Along with training in horse riding, archery, and the martial art of valari and silambam. She was married into the Sivaganga house.
In 1772 the East India Company, acting with the Nawab of Arcot, attacked Sivaganga. Her husband Muthuvaduganathaperiya Udaiyathevar was killed at Kalaiyar Kovil. She escaped with her daughter.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.