your bridge home
True Valor
Aurangzeb demanded she hand him over. She replied that he was not in her kingdom, which was true, because she had already got him out.
Rajaram was running for his life and every door in the Deccan was a calculation.
Sambhaji had been executed at Tulapur in March 1689. Raigad had fallen. His widow and small son were in Mughal custody. The surviving brother, Rajaram, was moving south with a small party, trying to reach Jinji. And Aurangzeb's forces were looking for him.
The emperor was, at that moment, the most powerful man in the world. And he was personally present in the Deccan with the imperial army.
Anyone who sheltered him would be understood to have chosen a side.
He came to Keladi, in the Malnad country of present-day Karnataka, and the ruler there was a woman.
Chennamma ruled the Keladi Nayaka kingdom from 1672 to 1697. Twenty-five years.
She had come to power as the widow of Somashekhara Nayaka. She was not born to the ruling house.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.