32 -- A Feast For Heroes

NOTE: This blog is a continuing dialog between the two faces of rilla. The identity crisis is explained (if such a thing is possible) in the first edition. Click here to read: 1 -- Introduction

Rilla: Can you believe it… it’s December already?!
rilla: DECEMBER? WHAT HAPPENED TO SEPTEMBER… AND OCTOBER, AND NOVEMBER?
Rilla: Boy, where’ve you been?
rilla: When did it become December? What’ve you been doing all this time? I thought we were in India, bringing Mom back to California…packing and sorting and junking and moving…
Rilla: Yawwwwn…ancient history… been there… done that. Who are you? Rip Van Winkle?
rilla: Feels like it. But why are you doing the yawning? OK, fill me in on the three months I missed.
Rilla: Let’s see… where to start? How about… hmm…
rilla: Good grief… there’s more than a thousand photographs in the camera…
Rilla: Guess I got a little trigger happy seeing as I’m not sure when we’ll go back to our hometown now that Mom’s here with us…
rilla: Hey, this one’s cool, what’s this?
Rilla: Oh, that’s women by the side of the road rolling out papadum to dry on mats… that was not in Hyderabad… that was in Pune.










rilla: We went to Pune too? You can STOP rolling your eyes…
Rilla: I don’t get it… half the time I just don’t know where you…
rilla: Hey! This is a good one…














Rilla: Oh, that… that’s just a billboard… the cricket player, you know…
rilla: Ha ha ha… you didn’t take this picture for a cricket player!
Rilla: You weren’t meant to see that one…
rilla: All this time I’ve been telling you you’re not that unique… takes a cricket player to make you believe, hey?
Rilla: If you don’t put a lid on it soon…
rilla: What? You’ll strangle me?
Rilla: No… I’ll send you back to sleep…
rilla: Ooh! Where was this?
Rilla: That was the view from Simhagarh, one of Shivaji’s forts, close to Pune.












rilla: You mean the fort that his famous general Tanaji took by attacking from the unguarded side. Sheesh… I would have liked to have seen that…



















Rilla: Too bad you were asleep. That’s one of the few stories I stayed awake for in history class. The fort was invincible, with steep rock cliffs on one side.





















So Tanaji, knowing that the defenders would not expect an attack from that side, threw up ghorpuds…
rilla: Yes, huge monitor lizards with ropes tied to them and they attached to the rock so strongly that warriors could climb up the cliffs with the ropes and let down more for the rest of the army. They were trained to do that. Isn't that cool? Now that's what I want to be when I grow up.
Rilla: What?
rilla: Why a lizard trainer, of course. Goodness, what's with all the eye rolling today?
Rilla: Seems like that's what I've become...
rilla: HEY! YOU CALLING ME A LIZARD?
Rilla: If the name... oh, forget it. Whatever. I thought we were looking at the pictures of Simhagarh.
rilla: Well, you still haven't answered my question.
Rilla: Which one?
rilla: Did you see any ghorpuds?
Rilla: Oh, that one. Nah… only saw the little guys…













rilla: Did you get a guide to show you around the fort?
Rilla: Nah…turned him away. Even though he offered to sing a song.
Got the low down from family, instead.

















rilla: A song? Wonder what he would have sung. Do you think it was a song about Shivaji? Shivaji! What a hero. I love all the stories about him.
Rilla: ‘Mountain rat,’ the Moghuls called him. How they hated his guts in rallying all the Maratha kingdoms to oppose the Moghul forces. Poor Tanaji, though. He died taking Simhagarh. 'We won the fort, but lost the lion,' mourned Shivaji. And thereafter, the fort was named Simhagarh or Lion Fort.
rilla: So that’s Tanaji's memorial?



















Rilla: He was celebrating the wedding of his son when Shivaji called on him to take the fort…
rilla: Looks like we’re doing a bit of celebrating ourselves?













Rilla: Mm… a real feast.


















rilla: Who’s that?
Rilla: Our lunch bearer.












All supplies come up the mountain from the villages down below…every day!











rilla: Hey! There she is again.



















Rilla: Yes. She was persistent. Made sure we ate at her stall.
rilla: So what did we eat?













Rilla: Bhakri.
rilla: Huh?
Rilla: Village bread made from millet…
rilla: …that’s so soft you can’t roll it with a pin
Rilla: …you have to pat it out with your hands...
























rilla: yum!
Rilla: But there were appetizers… onion rings, Indian style.

















rilla: Much appreciated, I see.



















Rilla: And little fried eggplants and…
rilla: … what’s that?



















Rilla: Yogurt! Set in the little clay dishes. Between us we ate almost thirty of them they were SO good!
rilla: So that’s what those funny black dishes on the window sill are.
Rilla: I liked them so much I brought a couple home.
rilla: So you had a good time, hey?
Rilla: Mm.
rilla: And you’d go back?





















Rilla: Mm.

























rilla: And here you had me believing it was all hard work and no play all that time…
Rilla: Go ahead…strangle me… at least I wasn’t sleeping for three months.
rilla: I worked too.
Rilla: Yeah? Prove it.
rilla: Here it is… my first publication… in the LA Times! ‘Blue Space Pajamas!’ You should read it…
Rilla: Sorry… too busy.
rilla: OK… then I will have to strangle you.
Rilla: I’ll just delete all these photos first…
rilla: No you won’t. I want to see more.
Rilla: I guess you’ll have to hold off on getting rid of me then.
rilla: For now…after you’ve shown me all the pics, it’s another story…
Rilla: Oh yeah? Who’ll take care of Mom?
rilla: Yawn… I feel sleepy again.

Shivaji - Wikipedia
Another account of a visit to Simhagarh
Book Review on Shivaji

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