E.Rajesh Pathak
‘What happened, my daughter?’ asked father seeing swelling on her face. Face of the girl was raging with the anger. Tears of being disgraced were concealed in the eyes. ‘A Mughal soldier slapped me,’ she answered, in choked voice.
‘Why, what happened?’
‘I told him not to exhale the smoke through his hukka[smoking-pipe] at the statue in the temple.’
‘Oh! That’s so,’- was the only reply of father, sinking into deep silence. ‘That wicked must be punished, father,’ continued girl. Even then father could not come out of his silence— he himself was living under the slavery of Mughals!
Time passed; and, the girl grew matured. She got married; her husband was a jagirdar[landed-aristocrat]. Once, getting a chance, she broke the matter before him of that childhood disgraceful incident -‘You are brave on battlefield. Why don’t you repel out of our land these wicked invaders , intolerant to our people and our places of worship?’ Like her father, husband also responded timidly-‘Forget the things of childhood’. He himself was serving the Sultan, devoid of self-respect!
Time marched forward. She got pregnant; son was in her womb. Even then she continued to be absorbed day-night in one thought: “How the country should be freed from the atrocities of the foreign invaders? Who would fulfill this perilously arduous task?” And, meanwhile, a son had born to her. As the child grew up, the mother nourished him with the virtues of bravery and prowess, telling him the tales of great personalities.
She wanted such a boy who could instill a new life in badly enervated Hindu community, and could avenge the disgrace dealt out to her and nation, eventually. And, the virtues that she imparted on the boy got her wish fulfilled; he emerged as a fountainhead of hope for Hindu community. And in the future with the diplomatic move driven by the calm of mind, displaying fighting skill of unflinching heart he even put once a formidable Aurangzeb’s army to flight from the battlefield. And, the boy was none other than Chhatrapati Shivaji, and the mother was Jijabai !
