Contact Me

By
Your Name :

Your Email: (required)

Your Message: (required)

Popular posts from this blog

A Photo Blog of Jaipur and Bhangarh

By
Image
India has some of the most massive ancient and medieval age forts in the world . Nothing comes close to sheer size and strategic geographic location of some of these. Of these forts, the best are to be found in the state of Rajasthan, the land of the brave and chivalrous Rajput warriors. Most of their forts are what are called hill forts, situated on a hill or ridge line and considered the most difficult to conquer for an invading army. Six of these majestic forts in Rajasthan are also a UNESCO World Heritage site ( https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/247 ). No other place will mesmerize a history lover as much as the state of Rajasthan, and in my last visit to India, I was lucky enough to get a chance to visit the city of Jaipur. The capital of Rajasthan is also home to one of the 6 UNESCO forts, the Amer fort and palace, also known as Amber. I wanted to do a detailed photo blog of my visit, but the sheer number of things to see in Jaipur, plus my increasing laziness made me do a ...
Read more

How a Rajput succession plan impacted the Battle of Panipat in 1761

By
Image
History is intriguing in how an insignificant looking event can have enormous significance many decades later. The Rajputs in India had been the first Hindu rulers to resist the Mughals. Apart from the religious differences, it was the geographical location of the Rajput kingdoms that was responsible for their resistance. The rajputs controlled areas touching Delhi and stretching from Sind to Malwa region of central India, they initially gave resistance to the Mughal invasions but with Akbar as the emperor, things changed. Akbar initiated a policy of matrimonial alliances with Rajput houses, marrying many of the rajput princesses and aligning the rajputs to Mughal dominion. The exception to this was the House of Udaipur, which never accepted wedding proposals from mughal emperors for their daughters. One should remember that the Udaipur kings were direct descendants of the Mewar royal family. When the first Mughal king, Babar entered India in 1527, it was the Rana (King) of Mewar...
Read more

Alexander: Why did the world conqueror decide against fighting the Nanda rulers of India

By
Image
There is an ancient military saying “ The Turks are known for their horsemen, the Persians for their Archers, and the Indians for their Armies ”. Alexander is regarded as one of the greatest of conquerors the world ever saw. Starting from small kingdom of Macedonia, he went on to conquer vast stretches of land in Central Asia including Ancient Persia and western India. Now we all have read in our school textbooks about how Alexander fought King Porus and after defeating Porus at the Battle of the Hydapes (the river Indus), his soldiers felt homesick and so Alexander decided to return to Macedonia. Offcourse Alexander himself could never return to Macedonia and died on his way back in Babylonia due to a mosquito bite. An emperor who ruled most of the then known world died due to a small mosquito. Now why would someone who was so determined on conquering the entire world, give up his dream after a battle with an Indian king. A fact that many historians agree on is that the ...
Read more

Thugs of Hindustan

By
Image
"The robbery and murder practiced by the Thugs in accordance with their ritual." - Definition of thuggee from the Oxford dictionary. The " thugs " were groups of professional assassins who had specialized themselves in the art of deceiving and killing travelers on the country roads during medieval India. The word thug is derived from the Hindi word " thag ", which means thief or swindler, which itself is derived from the Sanskrit word " staghati ", which means to conceal or deceive, and was coined to refer to the infamous and secretive cult of assassins in medieval India. The word "thug" was first mentioned in a book written during the reign of Delhi king Firoz Shah Tughlaq in the 13th century. This cult is estimated to have been responsible for thousands of killings per year for over 4 centuries and continued to remain highly secretive until the 18th century, when the British in India decided to eradicate the thugs. ...
Read more

How the Maratha defeat at Panipat change India's history forever

By
Image
256 years back on the day of Makar Sankranti, 14th Jan 1761, a historic battle was fought between the Maratha and the Afghan army at Panipat, 90km north of Delhi. This is also known as the 3rd battle of Panipat, the other 2 being the battle between the Mughals and Lodhis (1526) and Hemu and Akbar's army (1556). All of these 3 battles have been turning points in Indian history. The Maratha empire, then the most powerful empire in India ruling from Arcot (in Tamil Nadu) to Attock (Current day Peshawar, Pakistan), took it onto them to defend Delhi from the invading Afghan army of Ahmed Shah Abdali. It is considered as the world's last great battle of the 18th century when 2 armies faced each other in a classic formation on the battle field. The scale of the battle can be gauged from the fact that each side had close to 50 thousand soldiers. Ultimately the Marathas lost the battle with heavy casualties on both sides. This battle would alter the future of India as well thos...
Read more