It was beautiful morning, I was wondering around my native place. We had lot of fun during childhood; I was in farms very near my place. Many times we have been punished for stealing mangoes from there, but still was golden time. While going through tamarind trees I was stuck by garbage dump laying there, and just besides garbage there was hillock, next movement memories of golden days took me to that time.
“Ajinkyatara, Yes Ajinkyatara. This will be our Ajinkyatara and we will fight till end to protect our fort, our land. We will fight for our Flag and keep its respect“ Dadu was saying this while mounting a flag post on hillock . We were listening to him and we were feeling that energy to fight for out own respect.
My place in satara is surrounded by beautiful green farms and grounds for playing. Playing cricket was our regular schedule in holidays. One day twins from Kolhapur joined our gang , Dadu and bhaiya. They came to satara for schooling and were staying here with their uncle.
After few days they introduced us to new game and that was using sticks as swords, very quickly we learnt act of playing with stick like sword, we started mock fights with sticks. We started looking out for better sticks for fighting that search took us to the farms. We got few and we were ready, our force was ready.
We had first problem of not having any land or forts to protect then we started discovering small hills and we found first one that we names as “ajinkyatara” then we found another 3 – 4 hillocks we named them “Rajgad” “ Singhgad” and “Torna”.
“It was big empire run by Pama Didi, Who loves brown color and has brown color flag as symbol, she had almost 30 forts under her rule and she had 30 people in her force. I and Bhaiya was member of her force. One day we decided reject her rule and establish our own swarajja. Resolution began, It has never happened in past, we decided to take forts from her. Our first target was “Raigad”, Her brown flag was wavering on the top with the pride. With bow and arrow, bhaiya targeted flag and arrow hit a bull’s eye, Flag was down and we started climbing Raigad with roar “Har Har Mahadev”. Dadu was telling his experiences. We were astonished by his bravery. That night we slept with a dream of having our own forts.
Next morning we continued our search and we found another small hill it was located in dense tress, it was very difficult spot to find. Instantly we start shouting in joy with our discovery and new fort was named “Pratap Gad”.
By now we had swords and many forts but another bigger question was still unanswered. “Who will be our enemies? “ !!!
Then we began our search for enemy, initially we thought of splitting our self into two groups but that idea was later dropped. We realized that time even making enemies is also difficult. We tried to convince one person to take a charge of opposite force that idea was also dropped, not because he was stronger than us, not because he knew all the forts already but because he refused to fight. Our challenge was not only to make someone enemy but also make him ready for fight. Ours might be first empire that was making enemies.
A week passed like this but no signs of any enemies, and then we approached neighboring colony and with they agreed to be enemies. Wave of happiness passed through our hearts, we had another round of meeting to decide day for battle. Finally day was decided as Saturday. We gave them also ample time to prepare.
With only 2 days in hand we kept our swords ready and prepared some more bows and arrows. Meanwhile I was given spying job on our enemies. I managed to talk with my school friend who was living in enemy territory. We started getting information about their forts, strength weakness and most importantly their swords. We were not satisfied with weapons we had. One of our warriors had an extra ordinary idea of creating clay balls. All were busy in creating clay balls, we created almost 500 clay ball. Next task was to transfer various locations. It was Friday fight day was tomorrow, we were exited, tensed about the battle. It was obvious that we should not transfer clay balls (our bombs) in day time in front of enemy. We kept waiting till sun took rest towards far west. Then all were given jobs to carry few balls and place them near different forts and without any knowledge of enemies.
Our plan was ready; Battle was supposed to take place in common ground between 2 colonies. Team of 4 – 5 warriors including myself was supposed to take different route and go to the opposite side of ground. Once signal received we will open fight with enemy from back and enemy would be trapped in between and at same time another team will go way from battle field and capture their forts.
Then came the D day, Day we will fight for our pride. Time to show bravery had arrived. All gathered in morning to have final talks on plan, suddenly we got information about some enemy activity. We secretly reached there and we found that 4 – 5 people were preparing clay balls. It came as lighting strike to us.
How they got our idea? Who told them about this? Is their spy around us?
But there was no time to think about all this, we went back and got prepared for battle. Our team started on different route as per plan, Main team went to battle field with war cry of “ Har Har Mahadev”.
We reached ground zero and we were waiting for a battle signal. We kept waiting for 30 minutes no signal. 1 hour passed no signal. After 1.5 hour we came out and went to battlefield, we found only our people there no signs of enemy. Enemies didn’t turn up only for battle. Then we started towards their house, Then our team turned up their with joy on their faces and with the news that they have won all forts without fight, our flag is now on every fort.
We reached their houses called them and their leader came out of house. We were also getting ready for fight and his father called him.
“Where are you going? “
“We are going for a stick battle with neighboring colony boys” He replied.
His father came running outside; He saw sticks in all of our hands. We could see anger in his eyes, He took stick from his sons hand forcefully and took him inside and closed door. While closing door he shouted looking at me “I will talk with father in evening” We could just imagine what happened to our enemy leader behind closed door.
And we returned with joy of winning battle which never happened.
I came back to with noise of JCB digging for foundation of new building. Suddenly I realized It is about to destroy one of our forts, I went running there out flag pole was still there without flag, JCB did another round of digging and it was keeping it on the ground and to my surprise there were clay balls. They were kept secretly since last 10 years. But now even they could not stop destruction of fort. I picked up one ball and started walking towards home with heavy heart. That clay ball was waiting for 10 years to be used in battle of pride and now it is no more than garbage.
On my way back home I came to ground (our old battle filed). I looked up sky
Shivaji Raje up there in sky must be thinking same what I was thinking now.
“My men had given their lives for freedom, for people, for these forts, even after many successful battles now my forts are either waiting for a builders to destroy them or they are becoming garbage dump by people. Fort’s fight for freedom is still on and it will always be an IncompleteBattle”
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