The Peshwa who haunts Shaniwar Wada

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             The Peshwa who haunts Shaniwarwada


On every full moon night, no local ventures near Shaniwarwada. For at night, amid the darkness and within the empty structure, you suddenly hear screams for help. "Kaka mala vachwa" (Uncle , save me!) . You look around , puzzled. There is nobody except for you there, then who is screaming? 


The magnificent Shaniwarwada is a palace in Pune which used to be the abode of the Peshwas- the Prime Ministers of the Maratha kingdom who later became the de facto leaders of it. The sprawling location however, is not without its dark, spooky horror story.

Shaniwarwada 

A horror story is as good as it gets, spooky, exciting and thrilling... Did you know about Narayanrao, the Peshwa who haunts Shaniwarwada?  For basking in the horror of this terrifying tale, let us go back to the year 1772.


Peshwa Narayan Rao- the second successor of Maratha resurrection?

After the Marathas lost the third battle of Panipat in 1761, their fortunes and areas dwindled, but not before Peshwa Madhavrao, Narayanraos’s older brother revived them.

                                                    
                                                                     Peshwa Madhavrao 


After the death of his older brother, Narayanrao was invested as the Peshwa in 1772, amid a revival of hope for the Marathas.

                       
                                            Peshwa Narayanrao 


The main obstacle for Narayanrao and for Madhavrao too, had been their uncle RaghunathRao, who wanted the Peshwa’s seat for himself.

                                  
Raghunathrao 


In a scene that seems straight out of a film, the young Peshwa was slain when RaghunathRao’s wife allegedly changed the wordings of a letter he had asked her to pass on to his guards. She changed the letter which said “Narayanrao la Dhaarva” (seize Narayanrao) to now read “Narayanrao la Maarva” (kill Narayanrao).

It is said that the young Peshwa was killed right in front of his uncle’s eyes , his last words being "Kaka mala vachwa".....

Anandibai 

 

The first sighting of the ghost circa mid 1790’s

  “The Gods visit the sins of the father’s

        Upon the children”              

                                                                  -Euripides.


The first mention of a ghost in Shaniwarwada emerges during the time of RaghunathRao’s son- Bajirao II. After Narayanraos’s death, succession continued, amidst a lot of strife within the Peshwas and ultimately RaghunathRao’s son –Bajirao II became the new Peshwa in 1796.

A colorful personality, if sources are to be believed, Bajirao was as kind as he was a tyrant, as foolish as he was intelligent, a mixed bag of traits which made him unfit to occupy this seat of highest importance within the Maratha Empire, bearing the brunt of various perspectives which conclude that the Maratha empire ultimately fell because of him.                                 

Bajirao II



If however, one filters these superficial traits, perhaps what remains is a man who is scared. A man carrying the burden of the alleged sins of his parents.

Bajirao II was so haunted by the ghost of Narayanrao that he planted several mango trees in and around Pune to pacify the ghost. (So the next time you visit Pune, you never know, the mango tree you see might have been planted on Bajirao’s orders!)  Finally, unwilling to live in Shaniwarwada, Bajirao built other wadas (homes) and lived there.

The legend of the ghost, for all we know, could be a manifestation of Bajirao’s guilt, the guilt which may have influenced the very many poor decisions he made in the future.   

Maybe the legend of ghosts and spirits is to remind us that our past mistakes are always there to stay. To warn us to lead a good life , to not make huge mistakes that could carry forward to our children, manifest into legends, get fed on by local stories and perhaps become what Narayanraos’s ghost is today, a scary legend of an incident which can never be forgotten for eons to come.



Resources

Text

1.   Temple, R. (1883). Personal Traits of Mahratta Brahman Princes. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 1, 289-308. doi:10.2307/3677975

2.   https://www.livehistoryindia.com/story/amazing-india/shaniwarwada/. Accessed on 3rd July 2021

3.   https://indiacurrents.com/the-ghost-that-haunts-bajiraos-palace/. Accessed on 4th July 2021.

 

Images

1.   1. https://www.adotrip.com/public/images/areas/master_images/5c6a5fb858f94-Shaniwar_Wada_Attractions.jpg

2. 2.   https://tfipost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Madhavrao-antique-750x375.jpg

3.   3. https://procaffenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/3rao-compressor.jpg

4.   4. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Raghunathrao_Peshwa.jpg

5.   5. https://sahyadribooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AnandibaiPeshwe_C.jpg

6.   6. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Baji_Rao_II.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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