No, I don't deal in weapons. Actually, I am quite harmless. But an old Maharashtrian's passion for arms amazed me. He is harmless too and unlike me, loves History. This story is about him and how he collected the weapons, especially those once used by Maratha warrior Shivaji. :-)
***
Cold Steel
An exhibition of classic arms at Vile Parle detailed not just the 22 parts of a sword, but also tales of its owners and the battles they fought
Pallavi Singh
Mumbai, December 18, 2005
LAST week, at a playground at Vile Parle, people lined up in long queues. From 90-year-olds to children, they tottered across the venue, huddled in groups, listening, debating, pointing, laughing.
On display was a remarkable range of combat weapons, many over 300 years old, used by the Marathas, the Mughals, the Europeans and the British, and the stories of their pasts.
Exhibitor Girish Jadhav (56) fixed the focus right away: ‘‘Don’t write about me. Write about these weapons I’ve spent my entire life collecting. Each of them has a story you must listen to.’’
So the stories began, starting with the tiny but lethal ‘tiger claws’, a set of which saved Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji from Afzal Khan, a general of the Sultans of Bijapur, in 1659.
Considered the most celebrated act of Shivaji’s life, the crafty Maratha king foiled Khan’s treacherous designs by ‘‘ripping apart his bowels with the steel claws’’ hidden inside his loose-fitting clothes. ‘‘His triumph over Afzal Khan is often said to mark the birth of Maratha power,’’ said Jadhav.
The guerilla warfare in which Shivaji specialised, involved other weapons too—the patta (gauntlet sword), bows and arrows, the bear dagger and the lion paw.
‘‘These were not just weapons; from them were born methods of attack,’’ explained Jadhav, deftly working one of the tiger claws in a mock-fight. ‘‘Shivaji had a knack for steel wars. He made clever use of his weapons in the tough Sahyadri ranges.’’
And those weapons of the wild haven’t come easily to this die-hard collector. When he’s not managing his construction firm in Pune, he’s busy scouring chor bazaars across Mumbai for the hidden treasures of warfare.
‘‘You won’t get them the first time you try; you have keep haunting these places; you have to have a real passion for this,’’ he said.
He spoke of one of his numerous visits to a warehouse in Surat, where he stumbled upon a 400-year-old muzzle-loading pistol. His collection of more than 500 weapons—from battle axes and shields to enemy traps and punch daggers—has come from 20 years of stomping through places like Mysore, Bijapur, Golconda, Pune, Udaipur and Jodhpur.
Honour came in the form of a silver Shivaji medal with a rajamudra (king’s seal), presented to him by eminent historian Babasaheb Purandare in 1999 at Raigadh on the 325th anniversary celebrations of Shivaji’s coronation.
The rarest of arms come from royal families—who don’t part with them easy. ‘‘These families prefer destroying their weapons once a year rather than selling them to a collector”.
By now, he’s done this for so long, he’s become a walking library on the subject: ‘‘Did you know there are more than 65 kinds of swords in the world, and four different metals used to make them? Or that the plain-looking sword technically has 22 parts and most of them owe their curves to the Persian tradition. Or that the hilt can tell where the sword came from.’’
For serious collectors, the five kinds of arms—European, English, Persian, Indian and Far-Eastern—are ‘‘schools of thought.’’
‘‘These weapons were not just tools to win a battle, they were the source of larger war strategy,’’ he said.
And he resists attempts to put a monetary value to his collection. ‘‘Please don’t put a price on something I’ve spent my life savings collecting,’’ he said.
We come up to a large photograph of Shivaji’s sword, Bhavani, which now rests in London’s Buckingham Palace museum. ‘‘I got a picture from a foreign magazine and got it enlarged for exhibition. People must see what treasure we lost to the English’’.
eom.
* At the exhibition, I met an extremely old man who is listed in the Limca Book of World Records for his ability to teach how to type in a few seconds. My next story was on him.
***
Cold Steel
An exhibition of classic arms at Vile Parle detailed not just the 22 parts of a sword, but also tales of its owners and the battles they fought
Pallavi Singh
Mumbai, December 18, 2005
LAST week, at a playground at Vile Parle, people lined up in long queues. From 90-year-olds to children, they tottered across the venue, huddled in groups, listening, debating, pointing, laughing.
On display was a remarkable range of combat weapons, many over 300 years old, used by the Marathas, the Mughals, the Europeans and the British, and the stories of their pasts.
Exhibitor Girish Jadhav (56) fixed the focus right away: ‘‘Don’t write about me. Write about these weapons I’ve spent my entire life collecting. Each of them has a story you must listen to.’’
So the stories began, starting with the tiny but lethal ‘tiger claws’, a set of which saved Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji from Afzal Khan, a general of the Sultans of Bijapur, in 1659.
Considered the most celebrated act of Shivaji’s life, the crafty Maratha king foiled Khan’s treacherous designs by ‘‘ripping apart his bowels with the steel claws’’ hidden inside his loose-fitting clothes. ‘‘His triumph over Afzal Khan is often said to mark the birth of Maratha power,’’ said Jadhav.
The guerilla warfare in which Shivaji specialised, involved other weapons too—the patta (gauntlet sword), bows and arrows, the bear dagger and the lion paw.
‘‘These were not just weapons; from them were born methods of attack,’’ explained Jadhav, deftly working one of the tiger claws in a mock-fight. ‘‘Shivaji had a knack for steel wars. He made clever use of his weapons in the tough Sahyadri ranges.’’
And those weapons of the wild haven’t come easily to this die-hard collector. When he’s not managing his construction firm in Pune, he’s busy scouring chor bazaars across Mumbai for the hidden treasures of warfare.
‘‘You won’t get them the first time you try; you have keep haunting these places; you have to have a real passion for this,’’ he said.
He spoke of one of his numerous visits to a warehouse in Surat, where he stumbled upon a 400-year-old muzzle-loading pistol. His collection of more than 500 weapons—from battle axes and shields to enemy traps and punch daggers—has come from 20 years of stomping through places like Mysore, Bijapur, Golconda, Pune, Udaipur and Jodhpur.
Honour came in the form of a silver Shivaji medal with a rajamudra (king’s seal), presented to him by eminent historian Babasaheb Purandare in 1999 at Raigadh on the 325th anniversary celebrations of Shivaji’s coronation.
The rarest of arms come from royal families—who don’t part with them easy. ‘‘These families prefer destroying their weapons once a year rather than selling them to a collector”.
By now, he’s done this for so long, he’s become a walking library on the subject: ‘‘Did you know there are more than 65 kinds of swords in the world, and four different metals used to make them? Or that the plain-looking sword technically has 22 parts and most of them owe their curves to the Persian tradition. Or that the hilt can tell where the sword came from.’’
For serious collectors, the five kinds of arms—European, English, Persian, Indian and Far-Eastern—are ‘‘schools of thought.’’
‘‘These weapons were not just tools to win a battle, they were the source of larger war strategy,’’ he said.
And he resists attempts to put a monetary value to his collection. ‘‘Please don’t put a price on something I’ve spent my life savings collecting,’’ he said.
We come up to a large photograph of Shivaji’s sword, Bhavani, which now rests in London’s Buckingham Palace museum. ‘‘I got a picture from a foreign magazine and got it enlarged for exhibition. People must see what treasure we lost to the English’’.
eom.
* At the exhibition, I met an extremely old man who is listed in the Limca Book of World Records for his ability to teach how to type in a few seconds. My next story was on him.
4 comments:
I loved this piece, I am a researcher on Fire Arms and their history in India. By any chance do you have the address of this one Mr Girish jadav that you have mentioned in your blog.
if you have ny contact info please maile me at vee4ru@gmail.com
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
Hi this is Aniket Dumbre i have learnt Maratha Marshal Arts and also teach them. If you have any contact or address of Girish Sir please mail me @ aniket.soldier@gmail.com. It would be really very helpfull.
Post a Comment