various frigates missile boats submarines it's happening slowly we have to keep it kind of Under Wraps but our economy is growing the main thing is the economy has to grow and the economy is growing if you look at all the major economies in the world India is the best performing major economy now it's because of the policy decisions that the government took during the pandemic all other destinations did the wrong things I cannot go into the specifics of what is wrong because I am myself not an economist but you can see the results right now all the Western Nations their economies are tottering this massive inflation massive up surges in the prices of energy and all that India is doing well India is indeed doing well India is going to keep doing well so India is now a rising power it can no longer be ignored even the Chinese cannot indulge in any misadventure with India because they've seen what happened in galwan if they do that more they're gonna pay


galwan if they do that more they're gonna pay the price for that yeah right I met some Chinese dudes recently intelligent nice guys I asked them that what's your perspective on the Chinese government going uh to war with India and they were like we know our government and we were aware that it's a controlling government etc etc but we're aware supremely one thing that our government will show its teeth but doesn't really want to engage in Hot War because there's a lot to lose economically yes um so that is I mean it was just one meeting and it doesn't represent all of China but I trust those guys because they were entrepreneurs and they were intelligent but uh you have anything to say about this the Chinese government has achieved a massive amount of uh progress in the past 30 40 years no doubt about it they are almost a middle incrementation now they have massive manufacturing Industries and all that they have a lot to lose if they go to war with a major Nation they can lose


go to war with a major Nation they can lose everything they have constructed they're everything they've built in the past 40 years you go to war with India you you're risking nuclear war it's obviously mutually a short destruction but who only a mad person would ever even contemplate nuclear war with a country that's as capable as India if you look at the Armed Forces Indian armed forces are not as powerful as the Chinese Armed Forces but we have the missiles we have the Delivery Systems and we have the nukes and I think we have the fighters we have the fighters see this is the 21st century Fighters your Josh and your your Martial ability is not that important as your technology but we have the Delivery Systems it's not enough to have nukes we need to have the means to deliver them and we do maybe we do have the technology but we just don't know yet we may not know about it and of course in in the mountainous regions your Manpower also matters the quality of human


regions your Manpower also matters the quality of human power matters especially in difficult terrain where technology becomes uh redundant so in the Himalayan region in the Tibet region it's typically the hardiness of your troops that matters and Indians are really thoroughly acclimatized to the mountains Indian the Indian army Etc so the Indian army may have a smaller budget than the Chinese Armed Forces but our soldiers are top-notch and their our soldiers are better than the Chinese soldiers so if there is any misadvantages in the mountainous Regions they're gonna face a big problem like what what happened Galvan we lost 20 they lost 80 or 100 they they claim they lost only four but obviously it's a lie so so that's where we are right even even the Australians have corroborated the Chinese lost far more soldiers than India and they are trying to cover it up so overall we are in a good situation we are a rising power the Chinese know it they don't like it the Americans


the Chinese know it they don't like it the Americans know it they don't like it everyone knows it but can they stop us we better make sure they don't stop us one last hypothetical question on this episode if a hot war is to break out which includes cyber war on city-based populations which is you and me you have a family I have a family of a team what would be your first step uh when it comes to cyber war or or maybe both together well there's not much you can do as an individual or as a as a person who's a family the best you can do is and on a stockpiled stuff if there's a war you know a non-perishable foods and all that and water and then hope for the best as an individual you can't really contribute to geopolitics and to Warfare you have to hope and trust that the government has got all the bases covered I think India has got many bases covered more than what we can see even the Cyber basis may be covered you know


see even the Cyber basis may be covered you know we don't know we you're not supposed to disclose these matters you gotta keep things under wrap Under Wraps uh if there is a hot War I think India will be able to defend itself and maybe even take most likely take the fight to the enemy so I think they should be pretty confident about our abilities capabilities one last hypothetical question in the next 20 years do you see borders drastically changing yes that's it that's the end of the episode Mr chavra thank you for another geopolitics special thank you so much for having me any signing of notes for the listeners raise your standards what I would like to tell to tell the Indian population the Indian viewers especially youngsters is raise your standards stop wasting time contribute to the economy create something and give more to society than you take from society that's all how do you think they're wasting their time ah most people they they do waste time don't they I mean they don't uh


waste time don't they I mean they don't uh invest their time wisely in personal development in building a business or or becoming part of the workforce there's too much time spent in leisure activities or activities that don't really contribute anything to yourself to your family to the society so try to use it time is limited everybody has a limited amount of time we don't know how much we have use all of it wisely and and maximize the use of your time it is one of those lessons to be learned from the Chinese population extremely productive extremely motivated about careers and I think that change has just started to hit Indian youth so let's see let's see where the future takes us absolutely all right AC on TRS another epic episode next we're talking about science let's head into that one that was the episode for today we're going to be doing a sequel to this one very very soon as we speak as I'm recording this the situation in Ukraine is heating up even more I


situation in Ukraine is heating up even more I strongly believe that we're in the middle of extremely volatile geopolitical times it's going to become a habit of mind to even ask all the military veterans that we've had on the show questions related to geopolitics for more episodes just like this make sure you follow TRS on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world but keep in mind other than the geopolitics sequel for this episode we've also got two episodes with AC in the pipeline they're related to science because professionally speaking he's an astrophysicist he's a scientist and he has a lot to give when it comes to the Realms of science as well those are two incredibly deep incredibly power packed episodes so watch out for them they'll be out within a month keep falling following TRS for more unfiltered happiness through curiosity [Music]


Salim was very cruel he had a very handsome son called okay first son he was liked by Akbar because his grandson very handsome he was a warrior but when this son went against Salim of anarkali Fame what did Salim do to his own son he tortured him he took out his eyes and put him in the prison back into then they did not even only remove the eyes but they even put salt water in that for exaggerating pain for excruciating pain it's an interesting story finally Shah shuja they said he was killed by the Cannibals of arakan humans I mean I know cannibals are but this was there around the subcontinent yes and one of the strong hypothesis is after he was driven by aurangzeb's forces he was caught by cannibal people and he was his entire family was eaten welcome to a three-part special on chatrapati shivaji Maharaj it's a subject that I've wanted to learn more about out but I wanted to learn more about through the


out but I wanted to learn more about through the right person ma'am is that person I cannot encapsulate all her knowledge all her stories all her life's Research into just these three episodes either there's gonna be a lot more episodes we create with her the reason I say that is because we found a true researcher a true All-Star on PRS this one is a part one on the shivray trilogy as she calls it this one will focus much more on what India was before shivaji maharaja's Empire began to form what were the socio-economic conditions what was the reality of the average Indian what was the reality of the Kings and Emperors that ruled our land mass this and more on today's episode some parts of it get very dark some parts of it get a little disturbing uh but I urge you to listen to the entire podcast because you'll need this podcast to head into the next two which are even heavier but slightly more inspirational this one will also focus on Emperor aurangzeb


this one will also focus on Emperor aurangzeb and the reality of his rule is someone who's dedicated the last 20 years to researching about these subjects I'm not going to talk too much more about her enjoy today's very special part one and make sure you follow TRS on Spotify every episode is available on Spotify 48 hours of what's available anywhere else in the world because TRS is a Spotify exclusive this is Meera Bhaskar and mam for the first time on the ranveer show [Music] this is going to be another TRS special with someone who is a TRS All-Star chatrapati shivaji Maharaj and the history of India the modern history of India to some degree is a topic I wanted to cover for a very long time and we found the latest TRS All-Star it's medavaskaran on PRS thank you for being here ma'am thank you my pleasure you've dedicated the last 20 years of your life to studying shivray as you call him what happened before him what happened after him um


happened before him what happened after him um there's no way we can cover this in one podcast episode uh I've had a conversation with you outside I know the depth and density of your knowledge which is why in part one we'll mainly focus on the mughals and as you told me outside it's very important to understand what India was like before shivray or chatapati shivaji Maharaj to actually understand his mentality his history his Conquest in the first place so let's paint the picture of the mughals in this particular episode uh so ma'am firstly thank you for being here and secondly I will ask you my first question okay so right before we started rolling I told you how you've got to tell all of us a couple of stories today this is a two-part episode the first one is about why do you why do you use that term I've not I've not heard that term uh use that often uh you know and now it they say you have to say chatrapati shivaji Maharaj


say you have to say chatrapati shivaji Maharaj so even the airport is known as chatrapati shivaji Maharaj Airport uh International Airport in Mumbai but when you uh give interviews and when you mention uh chatrapati shivaji it becomes a little tough to say chatrapati shivaji Maharaja all the time you know so to respect this um Legend we would call him shiverai that means it the entire meaning chatrapati shivaji Maharaj comes in this one word Shiva Rai is Raja King shivirai you know that's how it is ma'am for international listeners or you know honestly a lot of Indians outside of Maharashtra yes people don't even know where to begin learning about this story the thing is when you enter Maharashtra every one who's grown up here has some context about shivray but the moment you leave it that context seems to get a little lost this episode is an attempt to rebuild that context on the national and hopefully International scale which is why I honestly don't know where to begin the


why I honestly don't know where to begin the story and I'm Gonna Leave it to you where would you like to begin the actual story maybe pre-context before uh his birth is that where you'd like to begin yeah so I before I begin with the story I would like to tell you that uh when I started writing the biography of chatrapati shivaji or shivrai the ex I thought exactly the what you are thinking now how to take shivray outside Maharashtra so that was the because uh there was no biography written on chatrapati shivaji or shivray written by an Indian in English you know so this was my attempt to put everything in that small book The challenging destiny so that was the intent so if I I thought how do I begin with that book so I gave the perspective I gave what was India thousand years before shivray was born then what was it 800 years before shivrai was born what was it before 500 years he was born but when he was born as a son of a


but when he was born as a son of a jagirdar jagirdar is a a person who is a warrior whom a land is granted by the king other Sultan then so when you grant a land you are in charge of the cultivators you collect the taxes from them and can and you maintain a Cavalry Force for the king so in today's language of your age people will understand is that the fashion was to Outsource the Army hmm it was not directly under the king you see so it that the entire Indian structure was like that the north was under the Mughal 22 provinces the Mughal Empire was the biggest perhaps in the world that time uh they had mansabdas the Warriors to whom the land was granted you will not believe that 80 percent of the Mughal Empire was granted land to the mansabdars what is a month is a warrior to whom the land is granted he is supposed to look after the cultivators collect because the only industry was


after the cultivators collect because the only industry was agriculture industry then so you collect the taxes from the cultivators and maintain the Cavalry for the king same as jagirdar same as what was in the in the Deccan there are four sultanates in the Deccan one second again to give some geographical context keeping modern day India in mind so where would the Mughal Empire kind of end it uh at the border of madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra gosh and then downwards from there which is Maharashtra and the Southern States there was um Adil Shahi and Hyderabad like Telangana and now what you know you call Andhra there was kudup Shahi so these shahis ruled Supreme that time reigned Supreme and down there was a vijayanagar Empire of the Hindu Kings which was almost waning by the time shivrai was born this is Tamil Nadu it was like kanyakumari the very down south okay you know I don't know geography exactly unless I see the map


don't know geography exactly unless I see the map but vijayanagara Empire still existed but it had become very weak you see okay so this was the picture of India then yeah you can go on uh with with uh one question I do have though yeah please tell me is you even mentioned one thousand years before shivarai's birth yeah why do we need to go that far back so so mentioned in the face okay in the book who attacked us and how we lost battles and what was the mentality of our people and how survival we became in the process you know maybe in this episode it is important to highlight that mentality because I feel the purpose of history is to teach modern day human beings lessons so that history doesn't repeat itself and honestly if you look at the geopolitical perspective of the world um it is a dangerous environment for India right now so whenever we are doing history episodes on the show I love highlighting psychology of people especially the people who were defeated that's


of people especially the people who were defeated that's what had happened so um I wouldn't go into deep into history but you know in Kabul we ruled actually king jayapal ruled then and he was defeated by an Invader from the middle Asia you know they had come from Afghan and they had come from Afghan and Beyond Uzbekistan Uzbekistan Kazakhstan they had come and now I don't want to name everybody but when they came uh we were secular in thinking we were secular in thinking and where we were very forgiving and we also had rivalries among ourselves the Kings the Hindu Kings in India there were a lot of rivalry that okay if some Invader is attacking my neighbor it's good for me you see that kind of mentality was very strong so uh and these people those Invaders had better War tactics like we generally went on uh you know elephant we had elephant Cavalry and how how does beautiful how does mounted on the elephants what is that how does


does mounted on the elephants what is that how does are the uh they where you sit inside that that structure and uh you fight like a chariot built on top of it I like that howda gotcha so we were they their War tactics where they had horses and they were very agile and speed they had speed you talking about the Invaders the Invaders yeah they had speed and they had they were ruthless and they knew there is a lot of wealth in India so they just came and looted us and it went on for about 800 years and so we then what happened is that a handful of them Invaders I don't want to go into religion sure because I'll tell you changis Khan was not a Muslim he had another religion so I won't go into religion but the Invaders who came and they were just handful and we had a great population there not so as big as now but we still were we could outnumber we could have outnumbered them so um why I said that that


outnumbered them so um why I said that that I wanted to give the entire idea how survival and we started thinking that we are secondary citizens so we accept it whatever and it was very brutal sometimes we were killed massacred and then our women and children were taken as potable property and it was like book The the perks for the their uh Warriors The Invader Warriors to and at one time uh it was like any Hindu woman you take and uh just deprive another Hindu to produce prajini you know it was also it's it's there in history all over so we we had become very survival and very um we had lost our self-esteem and we were uh thinking that yes we are born to serve that kind of mentality has slowly seeped in what time period are you okay I'm talking about um 11th or 12th century till shivray was born that is 17th century I'm talking about these that's 500 years yes at least yes so when your was going


years yes at least yes so when your was going through its Medieval Times in India this was happening you can't say medieval times since 12 13 14th century I think okay but it went beyond that same thing I'm not talking about Islamic invasions but same thing happened with Portuguese in Goa they converted that 15th or 16th century they became so powerful that we kind of they brainwashed us so much that we forgot our religion we forgot our festivals we forgot how we dressed we forgot our uh whatever lifestyle we completely changed they completely changed us and if we did not change and if we refuse to change they had torture chambers and those Torchy Chambers have been explicitly explained in challenging Destiny you see are you comfortable talking about it right now ah I'm not comfortable because it's it was very brutal like for example they have even uh with their sharp instruments they have even taken fetuses out of a woman women who were pregnant so that


out of a woman women who were pregnant so that that torture is just something which when I studied when I started writing about it it upset me uh for months you see but it's all there in challenging in my book challenging Destiny how do you research about that time period in the first place so there are books written see the best way to research the best way is to read correspondence the correspondence that happened that time between people you see that's documented documents yeah okay yes so I know uh historians whom I consider as my uh gurus and I mean my mentors or whatever you call them they learn these languages to learn the correspondence what language was it that it was Persian Sanskrit then Modi script in Marathi you know it's Marathi but it's written differently but it's the same we speak to no it's very different Marathi really yeah very different Marathi means if I meet some people in South because some people from here went to South along with shivrai uh and


from here went to South along with shivrai uh and they remain there and those South Indians now they speak Marathi which was spoken then you know wow so that I have few friends I made few friends some families helped me there and even I need to hear it very carefully to understand their Marathi though I am born a maharashtrian I speak Marathi still I don't understand their Marathi like for a dead body in today's modern language we call preeth but they call murder it's a very ancient Marathi I need to hear that so that there was a Modi script then and historians have learned I will resp I I have researched and in my books I have used the research papers of those or research books of those historians who knew those languages you see so correspondence that times correspondence is the most important thing how do I know shivray's son was so handsome how do I write it's not my imagination but there when he visited Agra the rajputs have written to other


he visited Agra the rajputs have written to other rajputska the in the correspondence it is written then only it is true then correspondence then next comes tamrapatra you know the the it's written on the Metal Sheets whatever is written like etched in stone it's like that that but that is also written in different languages as I am not a historian I am a Storyteller okay I have to I have sat on the shoulders of historians to write the book got you yeah so uh those tamrapatra then in maratha history there are Bakers means uh see suppose you are a king and I am in your court working so what you say look maida I give you so much money you write about my history now you have paid me okay when you have paid me I will surely write good about you whether or not it is true or not you see so these Bakers I have studied I have maratha history I went through many bakas they are very exaggerated text so you have to really filter it down


text so you have to really filter it down filter it down you see so those bakharsa I think are the history and then after studying all these some of the historians have written very um like for example he has spent 50 years of his life to study a history of aurangzeb Bacha aurangzeb so I really like his books but I will not take his books on what he has written on shivurai because his book on shivarai is a byproduct of what he researched on badshah aurangzeb so I won't take that book that book shivra's book from Surya do not sarkar as a base of my books what I want to write I will look at other historians like gajanan mahendale who really studied Modi and Persian to pursue his research on shivray I think when it comes to history it's written from so many perspectives that you have to see it from a 360 degree perspective and then use your own intellect to come up with it I wouldn't say intellect I


come up with it I wouldn't say intellect I would say instincts Instinct yeah you have to say see once you start researching you kind of developed an instinct that whether this would have happened or why this person did why what he did at that time and what he or she must have thought so you have to really join the dots so you don't need to be very intelligent you just need to be empathetic and instinctive and read between the lines read between the lines okay so it's a kind of a psychological warfare when you re within inside your mind when you start writing history you know and that's why we have podcasts to give us the completely filtered down version of things yes but uh with this episode again uh I'm already learning so much you know I think every sentence you have said on the show has had some information that's a reflection of everything you've studied over the years so anyway I will come back back to the story so I think this is a kind of outlook on


so I think this is a kind of outlook on what India was like yes uh between you said the 12th century and 11th or 12th century to about 17th century at the time shivrai was born mid 17th century okay 16 something you know 16 30 not mid early over this time period of 500 600 years uh what do you think the mentality of the average Indian was was there a lot of fear was there a lot of um suffering I mean I'm sure they were suffering throughout that time period but did people live with a sense of fear and suffering they see South was till then till the 13th century South was fairly uh safe you know hilji entered um after 30 in 13th century I think I'm not sure the date but the north was had already suffered several blows you know the by then uh so many invasions had happened so many temples were rooted so many peoples were killed so many women and children were taken as sex slaves or


many women and children were taken as sex slaves or other slaves so we have suffered in the in the north but what was happening in the north south did not learn any lesson you see so there is a fort of the ulathabad if you have heard beyond that the indigenous Invaders had not come the 13th century and we were very safe and sound in even in Maharashtra as well as deeper in South there were no sultanas no nothing but after 30 13th century uh the Deccan the fate of the Deccan went what was the faith of North Hindustan so we were very vulnerable we were scared so it there are two words you know there were two words uh sultani Calamity and uh there's one more word asmani calamity calamity sultani Calamity is the horse the Raiders are coming sultani Calamity asmani was a natural disasters two words were very common then you sultani and asmani calamity so we were very vulnerable we were very insecure


so we were very vulnerable we were very insecure we did not we were we did not know what's going to happen tomorrow uh and who is going to attack me and who is going to take away things from me uh whether and many children were taken we built they were made eunuchs and sold as slaves eunuch slaves so imagine it was a danger those were the dangerous times um and I don't think it is like peaceful period for uh North India till the 13th up to 13th century North India suffered after 13th century the deccans suffered all right I think that was uh strong enough context about what India was like and then what happened then what happened then shivrai was born okay I'm not see first let me make it very clear I am not for any religion or any because I am an atheist okay I'm not for any jat or nothing I just talking and I lived in three countries I lived in Germany where Christianity prevailed and I lived


in Germany where Christianity prevailed and I lived in the Middle East for 15 years where I have so many Muslim friends and I am a born Indian a Hindu I have so many friends here so I I'm my view is not biased because I have friends whom I love from different religions so the thing is what happened that time when shivray was born the Mughal Empire was there in the north with 22 provinces and you know how many months of thats were there uh about eight thousand mansabdas okay and there were 200 000 like or two lakh now we say in Indian numbers cap well-mountained heavy duty Cavalry means they have helmets they are full armor they have uh javelins then they have heavy duty um swords and then they have shields you know the heavy duty Cavalry and why I'm telling you it's relevant or what I will lead to what this will lead to next and they were very powerful and they used to have this uh when when they they used to


to have this uh when when they they used to cavalcade when their cavalcade used to go huh then there were cleaners in the beginning Road cleaners or uh tree cutters then Vanguard used to be consisting of uh camel Cavalry or maybe um foot soldiers the thing is then they had um camels where all their tents and everything was carried because they had very luxurious tents then it would never sleep in on a floor or anything for a Bacha or any mansabdar high ranking one sabdar they were palatial tense so that equipment was mounted on the camels then then there was Cavalry and then there were food there were thousands and thousands of oxen which carry food and then she goats for their mutton or whatever they wanted to eat and their families their concubines their wives their children everything used to be in the cavalcade so you will see Vanguard in one Village and the tail guard in another Village so there was an optical illusion of even to the sultanates


was an optical illusion of even to the sultanates they were scared my gosh what a force imagine you that illusion when you see that kind of cavalcade people used to be scared you know that what an Empire water strength who are we we even looking at the cavalcat people will surrender so that is an optical illusion and why who saw the flaws in in that object optical illusion none other than shirai there were flaws in that that also I will come to it sure so uh that was the Mughal Empire then he was the emperor he was allowed to keep the what you call signets like not signaturing they were like uh I just forget the name in English they had some kind of symbols like um Sun symbol and then moon symbol then the fish symbol then swastika symbol only the Bacha was supposed to keep even the the sultanates like Adil Shaha nice am Shaha they were not Emperors they were not supposed to call themselves Emperors and they were not


to call themselves Emperors and they were not supposed to keep all this uh you know images of fish or sun or moon God they were not supposed to keep they were the shahads they were not Emperors they were simply the Shahs and they had their own jagirtas but they were supposed to be the uh vassals of the Empire they had to pay some tribute to the emperor so Mughal Empire was all in all but what they wanted the mughals from akbar's time what they wanted I am not calling I will not call him Akbar the Great because I have studied him in great detail akbar's time they did not want the South to be just the vassals they wanted them to dissolve into the Empire and make it provinces of the empire can we talk a little bit about Akbar give us cruel and he was not the way it is depicted in many films why why is the depiction positive then at that you have to ask the filmmakers but I'm


that you have to ask the filmmakers but I'm sure the filmmakers would have studied some historians work so sometimes they like to romanticize many things you see I feel I don't try I do not watch historical dramas movies because it pains me and it makes me sad okay so I don't watch them you think it's a case of uh the winners of War always write the history books ah not even that if you uh you know now for example uh a very important book which is written and it has got national award also uh that Akbar has killed some of his subordinates to take his their women also you see so he was very cruelly what what he wanted he wanted so if you want to depict him as extremely good and uh extremely kind then that's incorrect so I feel if you want to make a movie show both the sides show the truth you see that way do you think all of History's characters are great um see see I can write anything I can write and change see


I can write anything I can write and change see how when when you say historical fiction historical fiction when you write it beautifully and show it on a big screen that historical fiction becomes real history for those who read and watch it my reference yes so that is what has happened you see and I don't blame you at all yeah because I was a 12 year old yes so you were 12 and then I don't blame you so but for those people who have studied history I don't say I'm an historian I have read books of the historians who have really given their lifetime to history okay so when I read their books and then I see these movies I feel oh gosh whatever you know it's it's it's good beautiful to watch I was fallen in love with all the songs of mughley Azam but it's good to watch as a story and not as a history okay and in Marathi also it has happened you know everybody in fiction as well as on on the drama stage they


fiction as well as on on the drama stage they were very famous plays but most of them were very Hollow as soon as as far as a truth hard-hitting history is concerned I don't know who will you know I'm just telling the truth and who will agree with me and who will disagree with me I I just don't care really I don't care yeah yeah I think I think based on the years of research you've done you have a much stronger right to express your opinion than just a keyboard Warrior yes also I have done research sitting on the shoulders of real historians have you seen Jodha Akbar yourself ah I have seen 15 minutes then I gave up because it was in too much of a positive light according to you the depiction of Akbar I it no I wouldn't say uh too much of positive the history itself wasn't in it was incorrect then you show everything about us but they just don't show the positive see there are the way of telling truth is that


see there are the way of telling truth is that if you is or lie is that you tell half truth and don't hide something like in fact in the pharmaceutical industry when I work now I regret it sometimes when a product was given to me uh say for example the product is uh loperamide to stop diarrhea I would what I would do I will highlight only the positive aspects of the product because I am in the marketing and I will hide the side effects or I will make it very minuscule sure and I will not tell that that I will not highlight that is I am hiding the truth you see so you can hide the truth and show only positive aspects this way you can tell a lie this is another way to tell a lie say a lie I think for any conqueror to honestly become great like when we say Akbar the Great is because his no I don't call him that I'm saying that when history uses that phrase yes let's use it probably from a perspective of the


let's use it probably from a perspective of the total land mass or the total population he took over and you can't take over large land masses and large populations without Force there'll be some opposition you face and it's probably the first opposition it's nothing like that it's it he was very cruel at times you know there was torture involved yes there was tortured which you don't see on Hrithik Roshan's face I don't know you know I would rather not talk about it but if you see the mobile history if you see now about for example Saleem his son and and we we sing his glory it's like I glory in another movie you know uh anarkali movie so I feel so if what if somebody makes a love uh Bollywood film on Hitler you see it will be something like that so the thing is um yeah Salim was very cruel he he had a very handsome son called okay first son and he was a very uh liked he was liked by Akbar because


a very uh liked he was liked by Akbar because his grandson very handsome he was a warrior and he was very secular and he could speak different languages and if I had are you anybody any of us had a son like that we would be so proud right but when this son went against Saleem of anarkali Fame what did Salim do to his own son and when he knew Akbar wanted to bypass him and make the emperor what did Salim do what did jahangir Salim later on became jahangir what did he do he tortured him he took out his eyes and put him in the prison okay and this guy who was blinded who was who they could not see who could not even talk in the prison because he was so tortured he was killed by the great Shah Jahan for 36 people shajan killed for the his kitten kin who could claim the throne okay so this kushru uh what what could have he done he could have done nothing but he was


he done he could have done nothing but he was also Massacre and only so I don't know how we can sing glories of these people I don't know really how did the killings happen back in the day back in the day they did not even only remove the eyes but they even put salt water in that and what what they removed the eyes and put salt water into the eyes the in the the holes of the eyes you know the sockets for exaggerating pain for excruciating pain and then they you know sometimes they would there was another way to kill there was a prison in gwalior what post they will make you know this uh opium seats they will put opium seeds in the glass and they they had some method to make that post as a drink or a drink from the Opium seeds now for example Suleiman Chico when he was imprisoned in gwalior prism suleman's son and his aurangzeb's nephew and he was he was raised by Shah Jahan to become the


he was raised by Shah Jahan to become the abacha so how he was killed he was put it in the prison and he was given drink of post he was he they made him addict to Opium and they first killed his mind and the body went deteriorated and he he died the most handsome the most charismatic the most intelligent died in his own filth you see there are many ways they killed people so they would put you in Dungeons and they will leave a lot of venomous snakes in that so you're you your children your wife everybody in that dungeon and they will leave the anonymous snakes so if you want to make love stories and glorify them did not have to kill anybody because he he was the only son but there was a cousin of him I think I'm not very sure but he sent him to uh the build on Long pilgrimage you know so but the others that was the that was how because there was nothing in Mughal Empire that if


because there was nothing in Mughal Empire that if you are the first Sun you will become the king there was no rule like that so every there was a war every time there was a war of succession or torture killing also kitten who could claim the throne so it was either the throne or the grave or the princess maybe before we move on uh I just want to highlight something I actually learned from abhiji chavada so um he spoke about how when we visualize mughals we visualize Indian looking people or subcontinent style looking people but the truth is that they were Asiatic looking because they came from um they came from like like you can think of it like you know how maybe some people in parts of China would look today no not necessarily then lot of mixed blood came in you see but the beginning perhaps they because David changis Genghis Khan's descendants so they might but then later on they married many uh you know rajput women and then they married other women so by the


women and then they married other women so by the time aurangzeb was there they were looking into by the time it was not the this point we should give some context on aurangzeb or would you rather go back to shivray and talk about just the state of Maharashtra no what I would say there was a Marathi analyst he died 60 years ago what he what he said which is etched in my mind and all my books are based on that if you do not know the enemy of shivray you do not know shivray so if you want to know shivra if you want to understand shivray you must understand Bacha rangip you must because if you want to end this I have said in many times for people youngsters like you if you want to understand Mr India you must learn about mogambu you should understand him you know so I studied um all my books whether it is historical non-fiction like biography or it is a historical fiction like Frontiers Relentless battle between abacha aurangzeb


like Frontiers Relentless battle between abacha aurangzeb and shivray as well as life and death of sambhaji I have always put my two protagonists it is shivray and bacharanzib then in sambhaji two protagonists it is uh shambu raje and uh so if you don't know what politics he is playing what kind of power he has what kind of money he can you know use or his mentality and he see the the biggest sharpest weapon of Bacha aurang there was his mind okay he even used religion in the contest to Empower himself you see so you need to know about the enemy you first have to understand Bacha aurangzeb he is politics his War tactics his strengths his brutality to understand shurai um why don't we talk about his Ascent to power because I believe there was a Bollywood movie being made about it called and whatever little I've read about the story of that seems to be based on the fact that there was this uh kind of power


the fact that there was this uh kind of power struggle between aurangzeb and his brothers and he had to kill a bunch of his brothers to actually Ascend to the throne and the kind of consensus is that he was the most evil of all the brothers and the other brothers were better but ma'am you go on as I told you it was the it was the legacy of the Mughal it was the history that they have to kill whoever is claiming the throne and then become the emperor please do not blame Bacha aurangzeb alone you mean one of the younger siblings or someone later on in the succession line has to kill the ones ahead of him no he not has to kill whoever survives after killing others not has to kill everybody is trying to kill each other though but the Survivor of the whole entire drama will become the Emperor as I told you either you have the throne or you go into the grave there are only two options you will have


the grave there are only two options you will have if you wear aurangzeb if you are the rashiko if you wear Murad or if you are sashuja the four sons of sajan so you choose you and I don't blame aurangzeb because whom we praise and whom we you know like because he was secular he was so he was very good looking and he was the ladla I don't know exact English word in that the darling the darling of shahjan so he was always given the see even as a Mughal Prince if you're a Mughal Prince you are given certain provinces and you get you get to get some money out of those provinces so he was given the excellent fertile provinces of Punjab wherever on the Ganges on the belt of Ganges all fertile land to uh was sent to bengal they say was a womanizer and a Murad who was a drunkard youngest of them was sent to Gujarat and aurangzeb who who was a threat to


and aurangzeb who who was a threat to shahajan whom he thought is a threat to him was sent on provinces like fight your fight your war in Kabul borders get me Kabul or you go to Deccan these are not fertile lands you are not getting money in from that and when you get less money you have less military power because you can't pay that you can't give the land to mansadas and ask them to keep the cavalry so all these problems so I wouldn't say what happened in the process uh darashiko grew up thinking he is the next Emperor and he spent all his time discussing religion with Hindu pandits and Christian pandits and Muslim pundits as an attempt to create a most stable Empire on the Future No he was just interested in that he was interested in those subjects he was an intellectual I'll tell you what he's one of the poems I love is why do I have to as a ray I am a raindrop ah why do


as a ray I am a raindrop ah why do I have to fall in the ocean and become a pearl I don't want to be that I want to become the ocean this is going to take some time for me to understand the meaning so I will let you explain your meaning of this point so he says I may as a received raindrops fall in the uh in the Shell that and then they become Pearl pearls he said I don't want to become a pearl I want to become the entire ocean is I don't want to limit myself to become a pull he didn't want to become the emperor hold on he didn't say he doesn't say that he did want to become the emperor see when you write poems it's not that always you write the truth it's just the beauty of the fact so it's like I don't want to just become the Pearl and then you know restrict myself to become a pearl I I want to fall in the ocean to


I I want to fall in the ocean to become the ocean no but unfortunately he got killed so he got killed because now you tell me very good on the battlefields and that's what counted excellent in Battlefield and his mansard and their Cavalry forces were ex where real ruthless uh soldiers this is excellent on the battlefield angle what does it actually translate those military tactics were very good military tactics then it it is the practice you know if you spend your life on the battlefield then you become you know what tactics to apply experience experience because he was saying exactly experience that is what I'm trying to tell you experience so shaja sent him far out to give him a tough challenge oh tough challenge but he became stronger stronger yeah there were a lot of hassles shahajan was always I always see nobody no baby is born cruel and no baby is bad or good it's the circumstances so I do not want to outright said badshah aurangzeb


not want to outright said badshah aurangzeb was bad man or abzal Khan was bad man or Mirza Rajesh I sing the one who could have become the Emperor of India uh joined the Mughal forces and he's a idiot or a bad man no is this the circumstances you know that is what I try to depict in my books how circumstances paid a played role in Bacha aurangzeb's life so when he was in the Deccan when he was in the Deccan uh you have to send some see 20 percent of the earnings you have to say some money has to go to the Empire or the all the money has to go to the emperor's Treasury and then he will send you money or something like that it was so there was a lot of fight between Father and Son according to shahajan he blamed aurangzeb that you are cheating me and you are not sending the entire money and because he was and aurangzeb said this is these are my uh


and aurangzeb said this is these are my uh books you know these are my account books look at that I am not cheating you so there was a lot of misunderstandings so what was aurangzeb's strategy now he's very clever you know he's very very clever now he thought I don't have money and my father is going to die soon and I do not want because the entire military forces are going to go to um his brother darashiku because he's the ladla the darling of the masses and even the emperor so how do I become strong how do I become strong I have this I was almost winning these two shahis are there if I conquer them I will get 10 to 15 crores of rupees you know they're lying in their treasury they were Rich Hyderabad was a rich very rich State you can read in why it was rich rich you can read in challenging Destiny what's the short yeah so they had lot of trade they had Diamond trade they had they had


of trade they had Diamond trade they had they had elephant Cavalry trade with who with the entire world see whatever little world was there the diamonds of Hyderabad were very famous they had spices and it was a rich country you see and that is why uh another character comes in I forget the name of that character mirjumla medium blast character is there very famous in my books so what he thought that if I capture now they are giving paying me tribute and they have not paid the Mughal Empire tribute for long long time if I capture them and make make them Deccan provinces provinces of the Empire and I am a Deccan subedar of Mughal they were the subedars you know okay so if I get these kingdoms or shahis as provinces of the mughals then I get I can lay hand on their entire wealth and I become rich and I can keep mansardas and improve my Army so he went and attacked he went and attacked Adil Shahi he went and


he went and attacked Adil Shahi he went and attacked Hyderabad hyderabadi almost captured but they wrote to shahajan that your son is getting too powerful call him back so shahajan sent a firman do not touch Qutub Shahi and he had to come back aurangzeb had to come back but still he acquired some land and money from them and he strengthened this Army so this way he he was going against his father's wishes to become powerful in the end he did become powerful and then comes the treachery first he made himself little powerful in the on the basis of having more mansabdas and more army because he squeezed squeezed some money out of qutubchai some money of Adil Shai and he bought their soldiers so then he became powerful enough then he knew that Murad is a brother who can be used and what he writes to Murad that darashiko is a mulhid means the idolater means it's like a it's a curse


idolater means it's like a it's a curse in wood in Persian that he is non-believer because he is discussing defunct politics of Aristotle and Pluto with Hindu pundits so how he can be he we have to cut him down with Islamic sword so why I'm explaining this that this how shirai used all this history you know so he wrote to Murad and he said that look you know uh we both can join together I'm though I I am so like I don't want to become the emperor I am very like I am very religious and I want to go into uh the path shown by our religion so I want you to become the emperor he wrote the letter is there I'm talking with the correspondents nothing no there is no dispute on this and then um we will join hands and we will attack uh when Sharjah and the news of shajan illness started filtering in he writes this to Murad and says that we will attack them together and you I


says that we will attack them together and you I want to make you the emperor because I don't have any um desire to become the Emperor or badshah what desire I have to cut down the person who is going against our religion joined him in that war of succession why did he fall for it now that is that he wasn't that intelligent perhaps I don't know I that see certain things in history we don't really know why people acted the way they acted but as for my instincts in why historical fiction I have given the reason why he acted because alone he could not have done anything alone he would have died anyway and he had committed lot of crimes in Gujarat for that he was punished later by aurangzeb himself so he joined aurangzeb in his forces and aurangzeb's forces then they went through towards ujjain where they where they faced a very brave rajput not Mirza Raja jaising jaswan Singh rathod and jaswan Singh rathod had


Singh rathod and jaswan Singh rathod had come to fight the war to with them sent by shahajan to protect his darling darashik and they massacred the entire 100 10 000 rajputs were massacred in that war that was now war of succession had started so uh then um this Murad and Aaron Zeb proceeded towards Agra they defeated jaswan Singh rathwood he was a he was the king of most powerful rajput Kingdom and the force was so huge you know so darashiko came to the south of Agra with his forces and he hesitated for two three days because he was never on the battlefield so he says what should I do or shall I attack shall I not attack he had 40 50 000 once uh I mean Cavalry forces either elephant or horse so he wasted three days in that three days that was a month off I think it was summer that time and these people have come from ujjain to Agra you see how the temperatures must have been so in


see how the temperatures must have been so in three days uh aurangzeb's Army could relax and there he took the there he used the religion there he lectured his soldiers that how important our religion is and our religion sword should come down on darashiku so many orthodox mansabdas they joined our friendship see he used I'm not talking any religion is bad or good how you perceive it and how you use it to your advantage you can use it for good you can use it for bad yeah you know I'm going to give a slightly deeper thought here and it's for the listeners to perceive or whatever okay but even you all knows books talks about how religion if you look at the human story of three lack years there have been many religions which have come and gone it's not just the religions we know right now uh but if you actually study the history of religion it's always been a tool to take control of masses and even the religions all of us


of masses and even the religions all of us follow today the human beings of 2020 to all our religions basically following a thought process the thing is that thought process if it reaches an emotional level in our brain it will have control over our brains correct so this is another example of History kind of highlighting the same Concepts uh and this is not against one particular religion or anything it's just it's just that religion yeah religion for the human Mind Correct because I think if a human mind doesn't have out and out material ambition or intellectual ambition it looks for emotional ambition and this is a very easy place to find emotional ambition yeah and it's it's all for the power which finally comes down to that power as it can be used to yeah you can use people yeah I think I think people who are fantastic I want to use the word politicians because technically these Kings and Emperors we're talking about the verb politicians of course they were politicians people of fantastic


politicians of course they were politicians people of fantastic politicians understand how to use the power of emotional ambition AKA religion in their favor to gain power yes they have a better IQ than the rest how to use that otherwise there'd be other people in their place yes this would be yeah there's a reason they're right up there that's right but it's also combination of intelligent how to use people and be ruthless in using human beings right so that is how it is the reason I'm saying that is because there are real life uh lessons here which you can actually apply in your own life is relevant today that's why I wanted to write my music shivra's Vision so that is my muse his vision I will let you go on with the story I'm sorry so it's that time War not fight huge not even born battle happened the right word is battle in that battle a lot of forces joined ours forces ran away told himself and uh the entire Army was massacred darashikus who stood


entire Army was massacred darashikus who stood by him and then he ran away that's when he fell down from the uh you can read in my book how he fell down from the elephant and how he was saved and uh he rescued and he ran away to into the Agra fort and hid there and from there he ran away to Delhi and from there he ran away to uh to the borders of Afghan from there he ran up I mean Afghanistan and Iran he was he was not Afghanistan that is known as which is where geographically which is the Thousand I exactly now don't remember but Boland pass is somewhere in baluchistan or some that area okay I don't know I'm not sure please but he survived he said no no then he was caught by Mirza Mirza Raj Singh was jahajan's right hand man he after shahajan was imprisoned by aurangzeb he came to aurangzeb he left shajan and then he went to Bolan pass and caught darashika and


he went to Bolan pass and caught darashika and brought him back to Delhi and then where he was he was put to a trial um you know and she under Sharia law and he was beheaded that is his story beheaded four we headed for being uh being um a mulhid a idolater and uh and he he actually what he did he wrote a book which is known as uh meeting of two oceans two religions so that is his biggest crime how can he do that it is like are books like this still available I don't know but he wrote that book manuscripts may be available he wrote that book uh oceans mingling of two oceans what's a manuscript manuscript is the like there were no printing books printed books no so when an author writes the book which is not a book as it but his story is known as manuscript okay okay maybe available go on so my in the in that book I have made there is a strong character their sister jahanara she was very


a strong character their sister jahanara she was very secular and there is a big conversation which happened between aurangzeb and jahanara it is there in history and it is there in my book also that she tells him that uh you know spare your brothers at least she loves darashiko very much as a brother so he then he tells her in my book don't cast morals what has father done you see father had Massacre 36 of them including kushru kushru who was the son of jahangir and who was blinded and imprisoned by his own father who was also killed by his half-brother we don't call Step Brothers they called half brothers that time which is shajan shajan masaka 36 of them to come to the bar so there aurangze it is I like to empower women characters you know in my book being a woman writer Maybe then I love that character Johanna and I really went deep into her poetry and a lot of things including aurangzeb's daughters what


a lot of things including aurangzeb's daughters what was the condition of women they see actually the Mughal women were too in the eyes of Mughal men the Mughal women were too precious to marry anybody so they all remained unmarried really yeah many of them were never married one was imprisoned by aurangzeb she was a great poet her poetry is amazing so you know these women characters even maratha women are very strong they were so now I am thinking of writing a book on maratha women non-fiction The Feisty women in maratha history which I would like to write if you know my health remains good uh you don't know what you're just doing through this podcast itself I though it's our first ever recording I urge you to be on like at least 10 more episodes oh gosh uh because I know polymathu and I speak to one so there's a lot there's a lot just being straightforward and truthful has made me I sleep peacefully in the night and I don't


I sleep peacefully in the night and I don't have to remember the lies I said that's what that is and you think in these modern day historian narratives there's a lot of lies they they don't show the truth I won't say lies they don't show the truth okay they hide that you don't tell them I don't call them Liars but they hide the truth at this point in this particular episode's recording I've realized that we're not doing a two-part episode it's gonna be a three-part episode and this one's just like sort of a commentary on the mughals because this episode has turned into much more about the mughals than Chevrolet I want to ask you if there are positives during the whole Mughal rule as well for India you know because I know we had positioning them as the antagonists of course they brought art and culture I would say you know but from where they got the art and culture the cultivators were slogging and uh the uh the cultivators were mostly other


and uh the uh the cultivators were mostly other religion and they were slogging and they were deprived of their food uh the the the agriculture industry how much do you think how much money the mughals were collecting from 22 provinces how much money do you think 1.20 it was one crore 20 lakhs that is about 12 million rupees and rupees was not the paper money what was the rupee it was a silver coin of I won't say exactly Tola I won't use those words I will say about 10 grams huh and one crore 20 lakh or 12 million that becomes 10 gram silver coins would fetch you 93 000 kilos of gold then what is the cost of 93 000 kilos of gold today is 3.5 billion dollars that much money the Mughal got from extracting the cultivators from uh from sucking their blood and sweat over how many years many years like the entire Mughal rule but Mughal root became very powerful after after Akbar you know so they


very powerful after after Akbar you know so they and out of that 20 percent went straight into the coffers of the emperor the rest was taken by mansabdas to maintain Cavalry now 200 000 heavy duty Cavalry eight thousand one sabdas and then there is a artillery men forty thousand artillery men hundred thousand footmen their families imagine the expenses and then the lifestyle of the monthsadas became mini Kings the powerful ones so you think how much ever I have read um one sen book on administration of the Mughal they say it was very great but I feel that 80 percent of them it's my instinct it's my opinion the historians can say it is wrong in my opinion eighty percent of the Mughal Empire was under the rule of these military men what kind of Justice anyone will get under these monthsadas who are ruthless Warriors and they are maintaining Cavalry so everybody in that area is scared of them imagine if there are 10 um AK-47 or


them imagine if there are 10 um AK-47 or the latest Russian gun building people staying in your neighborhood everybody will be scared of them right similarly so these mansardas were a big Force they lived like sometimes they copied the um Agra Fort and um this Delhi Fort and they created their own um [Music] Lok Sabha rajya Sabha yeah rajya Sabha like that um anyway so so it is they were Rich the Mughal and then when aurangzeb came to the power he came to the bar by eliminating all his brothers that is also very interesting story how he eliminated Murad however he eliminated so it was always slight arctics no slight tactics nose it was war face to face War jaswan Singh rathoda went to event and joined shashu's afterwards and Suleiman shikos darashiko's son also joined Shah shuja and how they were massacred it's an interesting story finally Shah shuja they said he was killed by the cannibal cannibals of arakan


killed by the cannibal cannibals of arakan that is beyond cannibals those who eat humans you know humans I mean I know cannibals are but this was there around the subcontinent yes where that was this is history you know there are many hypothesis of how Shah died and one of the strong hypothesis is after he was driven by aurangzeb's forces deep into the deep into Bengal and again deeper into that he was caught by cannibal people and he was his entire family was eaten that's the story um this is modern day Bangladesh I don't know they call it arakan this must be like maybe it was like you know not even Bangladesh beyond that uh Burma Burma website perhaps wow yeah so that is the very wild which is known as very wild um not North East North East Frontiers very wild this is probably beyond the modern beyond the modern model so beyond the modern bottles wow there was cannibalism as recently as then one of the hypothesis


as recently as then one of the hypothesis is that he was killed now nobody knows how he was killed so this is what the historian sees uh this is wow okay yep I'm blown away by this cannibalism angle yeah uh just that side note to you as a co-creator because you're also a creative professional the modern day audience loves dark Concepts like this about cannibalism which is there in my book and there is darker concept and why shivrai did not become a mansard of them girls let's have that in the next episode because this one's more Centric about aurangzeb yes so he took on his remaining Brothers in battle defeated them I'm sure gave them torturous deaths you know I will tell you a describe a bottle battle if you have time we have all the time so was very confident he came I don't know where exactly there is a town in north where they fought this battle I don't remember the name of the town but what he did he


the name of the town but what he did he made three big elephants he made them they they also give the elephants post and make them they were on they must you know they come on heat or something like that they become wild the elephants then uh is opium wow okay post is that this is a p o u s h t post okay so this OPM and so they what they do they tie a kind of round iron balls with spikes hundreds of not hundreds tens or 20 iron balls they tie to a chain and tie that changed chain to the trunk a trunk of the elephant and they are left free into the enemy uh ranks and then these these trunks go round and those who get hit by the spiked balls instantly killed so they leave behind dead bodies and they run so such elephants were left into the aurangzeb's army but you have to read my book I'm not going to tell you the entire story somebody has to buy my book and read also I think


has to buy my book and read also I think you're going to get a sold out kind of situation with all your books after these podcasts yeah so this is coming Frontiers the historical fiction how that war was fought actually took out those elephants how he himself did not bother him he was so brave that he jumped he his mahot jumped on one of the elephants and then controlled it and how awrington then fought from because that was he was on elephant Cavalry you know he himself was a good warrior yes so he had earned his right to be on the throne in somebody I feel in some ways okay I feel so it's not this whole oh just you know it was like a whole all out I'm a good warrior I'm a good politician I'm a good warrior I'm a good politician I have been on the battlefield I learned the tactics I've been on the hardest parts in Northwest Frontiers as well as in the Deccan and my brothers one is


as in the Deccan and my brothers one is a drunkard one is a womanizer one is lost in philosophy of Hindus and religious philosophy and so this was and if I don't kill them my four wives and my children are going to be in the dungeon snakes are going to be there and I'll be killed so what do I do this is a fantastic picture you're drawing out of the villain of our story of shivray is the muse of my books what was his vision for how it it is relevant even today to Common Man that is the most important these people had no vision they wanted power they may be great in art and culture but for a common man to have a vision is a different thing it is why that vision is My Views Muse you know and we forget 11 crore maharashtrians forget the vision I'm sorry I mean there will be a black Clash on my yeah I think you forget the vision of shivrai and you go around against something else and I'm


and you go around against something else and I'm not saying all 11 crores there will be people who are suffering like me like we know I mean I don't know the thing but I've just got a glimpse after 20 years of studies thanks to the historians who have given their life again and I again I'm repeating I am not a historian I'm a microbiologist that's it yeah okay you can go on with the story so uh he imprisoned his father and everybody was killed Murad was imprisoned his own son Suleiman um not um Muhammad Sultan his own son the oldest son also was imprisoned his own son because he also went and joined Shah shuja the uncle he was imprisoned he they all died in gwalior Fort um suleman's son died by opium overdose Murad his own brother died he was hung there was a trial on Murat I think he was hung and Muhammad Sultan Muhammad Sultan his own first born aurangzeb's


Muhammad Sultan his own first born aurangzeb's first born son died of depression at the age of 36. died of depression we became depressed but how do you die of that yeah you die of depression you get heart attack you your immunity goes down you are vulnerable to everything I have written a book on depression and Immunity exploring immunity just now so you asked me now this is the story this is how aurangzeb came to the through he got the throne when he got the throne he was the Mughal Empire was it as its peak okay they were getting uh 12 million um rupees in like you know the the the tax on agriculture and they had when he came became he came on par there were eight thousand months of Das and 200 000 uh heavy duty cavalrymen and then there were 40 000 artery artillery men and the artillery men were trained on the Portuguese they had lightweight cannon not the huge cannon mounted on elephants they had lightweight


the huge cannon mounted on elephants they had lightweight Cannon which could be um you know if shifted from from one place on the battlefield to another place which were mounted on the horses so they were very well equipped when you fire Cannon what actually would happen see there are two ways either you can fire explosives from the cannon or then there are Cannonball Cannonball are just the iron Big Balls you hit something that the whole structure will fall they are not explosives like a big bullet be like a big bullet which will kill the we kill the entire building or then there are explosives which are you know like a bomb like a like a bomb yeah so that also there were there was expertise if you read my Frontiers you will see how they filed at Hyderabad in Hyderabad battle you have to be so precise that near Joomla character you have to read in my book do you have to be so precise that that explosives have to the entire play is on the the the


have to the entire play is on the the the the cotton wick Wick okay you should know how long it should be and then the when you fire it the wick has to finish burning and by the time it reaches the target it has to explode so that itself is an art you see and only those people I think they've had those people with him so it was very powerful so what I'm trying to say is when shivrai was thinking of creating his small swaraj he had a enemy like aurangzeb who was so rich so powerful military-wise and otherwise and before we move into part two I would just like for you to end part one with a little bit of the description of the Warfare and the weapons used by oranges we just spoke about the Canon but what else is unique to that Army as soldiers did they know how to fight together were they just ruthless and very skilled were they physically much bigger what was making the mughalami feared as you know a force a


mughalami feared as you know a force a Warfare Force the first is the numbers okay nobody could match them with numbers you see you are talking about um half a million people and these are soldiers from all across the subcontinent not only that they were uzbeks they were from uh um you know they were from Tajikistan turkistan they were taller they were good looking and you won't believe how now we discriminate if a European comes to work we always look up at him we have that deep into inferior inferiority complex you see yeah I have seen that in Dubai I have seen that in Germany we have even I had that Agora is always a better person he always is better skill he or she so so then even in aurangzeb's Army these people the blue eyed Uzbekistan some Russian from the this thing was Volga there's a river called Volga in Russian border I am not very sure where and there there are there are women forced the women also were brought from there really


women forced the women also were brought from there really yeah there were women in the Mughal Army not in the Army to uh to uh to guard their forts the name I'm I'm just forgetting the name of this women they were very sharp and very trained in Warfare so these people you won't believe and are Indians marathas were there in the Mughal Army rajputs were there in the Mughal Army the madhya Pradesh and you know uh Delhi all Indians Hindus also were in the Mughal Army these people are the dark ones skin color were paid lesser than the fair ones so we had the racial discrimination even then you see we had a terrible racial discrimination as far as I have heard uh you've heard of the siddhis who were brought from Africa they were also a part of aurangzeb's not much not they came later later not much these were maybe there were very few but this not the force to reckon with okay it was mainly this is another story you know


okay it was mainly this is another story you know which we would love to hear yeah that's another story it's a beautiful story did you enjoy part one do you think it's a healthy enough I hope you enjoyed and I hope you know as much as truthful and I how I remembered the history by studying it for 20 years I have said that no this is this is a big favor you're doing to us on our platform and generally the Indian internet you know I don't think YouTube India has a piece like this with this much detail uh so just big thank you to um even just for part one uh but of course we're gonna bring out part two and part three from you so uh part two is gonna be much more about shivra I don't want to talk too much about that episode all I want to say is one big thank you to you thank you so much it's my pleasure yeah as long as you had fun I think I had fun but maybe I was I was a bit


had fun but maybe I was I was a bit too Frank so I don't know what no that's how podcast should be okay yeah thank you ma'am we will see you in part two thank you that was the episode for today sometimes when I get a guest like this who's this well researched this eloquent and this passionate about their subject matter I kind of get reminded about why I began this podcast in the first place it was to learn much more about the history that happened this recently the purpose of history is to improve our pattern recognition abilities what has gone wrong in the past what was the suffering of the people as recently as 500 to 600 years ago that was the purpose of this particular episode and chatapati shivari Maharaj has been a topic that I've had a lot of passion for ever since my childhood but more so in the recent past the next two episodes will dive straight into his philosophies and his story I hope you enjoyed this one share it with as


hope you enjoyed this one share it with as many people as possible I feel every Indian should learn about India's recent history especially before the British began their Raj for more fantastic historical episodes make sure you follow TRS on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world two more fantastic sequel episodes coming your way very soon with medha ma'am see you guys [Music] thank you [Music]


see the life story of the person who wrote The Lord of the Rings trilogy he passed through that he he went through the wars the world was right he lost many friends in there he genuinely suffered right but you look at his books they're all of nobility of you know strong characters both both male and female you will not get most just because you worship a particular God it doesn't work that way because even gods are subject to the laws of cause and effect they are subject to the laws of karma you remember at the end of the Mahabharata Lord Krishna was cursed by Ma gandhari right and what is Lord krishna's reaction to that magandari was a woman I was was just a human being now Krishna was God himself a human being cursed God what did God do what did Lord Krishna do he didn't say how dare you this blasphemy no he told magandari ma as you wish is one of the most renowned authors that India has ever produced his


most renowned authors that India has ever produced his books a loved all over India and now all over the globe as well this particular conversation was an attempt to learn more from his research material because in order to write the number of books that this man has written about Indian culture you need to have done a lot of research so this one's a deep dive into his research as well as his mind and of course because it's TRS we spoke about some slightly edgier slightly darker Concepts as well lots of talk about death lots of talk about the power of the divine feminine in Indian culture which sure you're going to enjoy this particular episode remember to check out and buy amisha's book The War of Lanka it's out now and remember to follow TRS on Spotify Spotify exclusive which means that every episode is available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world this one's another Amish tripathi and ranveer alapatia special on the runway show enjoy yourselves [Music]


on the runway show enjoy yourselves [Music] thank you oh please as long as you are not going into the dark web no no no no no are you doing cyber security folks you're one of my absolute favorite guests to have on the show we've done I think two or three epic episodes till this point so uh back then during the pandemic the trends were very much Indian culture related we have to create episodes according to the trends of our times and as you can see from around us it's all about Darkness Darkness is the trend why do you think the world is fascinated with um you know uh uh there's a theory in our ancient Indian way right that we know that Lord Ganesh is the remover of obstacles what many don't know is that from many of the quranic stories Lord Ganesh is also the Placer of obstacles really the belief in our ancient way used to be that if you don't have obstacles if you don't have real problems in life right


if you don't have real problems in life right because that's what makes life life right say life has become so privileged uh that uh you know that that the brain goes into a spiral because you're not actually facing quote unquote real problems right you're not facing uh you know you don't have a shortage of money I mean the government is taking care of any medical Necessities or you get a you know a minimum uh you know uh allowance that the government gives you every week uh so the brain goes into a spiral and you see that and I'm living in London uh right now you know I'm there as a you know in a diplomatic role and I find that even more and in that sense it's a little troubling a little sad that I find that many of the youngsters in the West it is in many ways a very angry generation it's among the things that spoken of you know out there in media and many other places there is a desire for dark content you know so even


is a desire for dark content you know so even the kind of Netflix Amazon Prime series that are uh that are coming out the kind of music you see the kind of words that are that are there in the music um but if you see their real life you know uh many of those youngsters in the west as compared to how uh youngsters are living in poorer countries right uh where uh they're worried about whether their parents will have enough money to send them to school let alone a good school right so many of the poorer countries like in Africa for example when kovid hit uh they didn't have many of them didn't have vaccines you know that I mean India actually sent vaccines as Aid to many African countries uh and you but despite that you see the youngsters in in Africa you see in India you go to the you see Street children I I do charity work in London as well uh you know I've gone with uh there are these ngos who go and distribute food I'm sure


these ngos who go and distribute food I'm sure you've heard of Akshay Patra right the Indian uh bro uh NGO is distributes and they do wonderful work Distributing food in India many don't know they're there in the UK as well and there's a there's a problem of of homelessness and uh you know a lack of food in many of these places I have done charity in India too and charity is not just about getting money you need to go give your time you need to talk to people and you'll I found that many of the people who live on the streets in India have this Gunk or Spirit they all of them know that we're gonna be off the streets in a few years we're gonna rise you see the children which is there they're bubbly they're they're enthusiastic but you know I found when I went in London many of the street people there's they're largely Men actually very few women 90 of the people I saw were men or young boys uh


the people I saw were men or young boys uh and in many ways they were almost broken lost hope yeah it was almost depressing you know talking to them and uh as the society you know in the privileged sections has it become you know that that that they are almost finding problems because there are no real problems and many of the poor in the west are really being left behind and there's a loss of a sense of hope so is that leading to uh you know seeing the entire world in a dark place when actually if you think about it the world has enough money we have generated enough wealth over the last 100 200 years to take care of everyone actually right um I think it's a it's a cycle in a way that you want real problems because that creates better people right how do you build muscle you know you're a good you know and one can see that you know I'm obviously not that well built but how do you build muscle you build it against resistance right you need resistance


you build it against resistance right you need resistance if your body doesn't face real resistance what happens to your muscles it are trophies right so I'm wondering if life and the mind is also like that and God is in that zone where he's throwing his difficulties that's what Lord Ganesh is you know that's what we are taught in the puranas that he wasn't just a remover or obstacles he was a Placer of obstacles as well that resistance training strengthens your soul it strengthens your mind I've gone through uh I've spoken about her a few times I don't like speaking about it too much but I I've had a very difficult seven eight years you know the last uh he was in my personal life and the career has you know every year has been better than the previous year you know uh God couldn't be more kind but in my personal life like one tragedy after another I lost people that I really admire uh close family some in very tragic ways uh to


uh close family some in very tragic ways uh to the extent that there was there was a time you know I'm a very devout Lord Shiva worshiper I pray every morning every morning there was one morning I just looked up and I just screamed like just stop you know I mean I can't take it anymore just stop you know how much will you taste in our entire family all of us suffered a great deal now what are the things which get you through this again I'm talking about some parts of the world where you find this desire for dark content even more you find even among Elite classes in India part of what gets people like me and you know what happens to some people yeah you pass through this pass through a phase you're just tired some of the other tragedy keeps hitting and some why don't you explain a little bit about is so there's this thing that you go through this phase in life whether you know your uh the planets are against you and testing


know your uh the planets are against you and testing you I believe it's also for either seven months or seven years or some some yeah seven years Quantum of seven and uh our entire family we went through and one after the other we just you know I mean and when a new thing would hit it would almost be like you know uh what got us through this was the fact that our family is very close right uh what gets you through difficult times is having people you love around you and having things to do which you love right and look and all your you know social media all this you know I have so many followers they are not your friend's boss they're not people you love right on Instagram or wherever I'm not deriding those there's a value to that but the number of people who will die for you without a second thought and the number of people you will die for without a second thought those are the people you love and that's never more than the number of fingers in your hand right very


than the number of fingers in your hand right very few people right and having something that you love doing right uh like for me I'm lucky I'm I write I love doing it right even if I didn't make I'm lucky I make money from it even if I didn't make money from it I do a banking job I do some other job but I keep writing right having something that you love doing and having the small number of people who you deeply love who you'll die for without a second thought right that is what gets you through life whether you have real problems or you don't have real problems so I think that's missing in modern day in our modern lifestyle yeah again this is sounding like I'm going to highlight and Champion India and Indian culture in this conversation and I'm totally doing that uh if we zoom out a little bit okay this is your one life as Amish tripathi but this is not your only life of your soul you had lives before you're probably gonna have lives after


lives before you're probably gonna have lives after unless you go around a deep three yoga path and then start meditating calm the down that's the point no I mean I also yes that uh you know I have yet BK Shivani on the show I asked what's the purpose of space why does the universe like why do all these stars and galaxies exist and she gave a long explanation but my takeaway was that it's kind of God's way of saying hey you know your problems are like really small like that there's a lot of other stuff out there now when you actually zoom out of uh your perspective of life in this lifetime as a man and you look at your overall lifetimes as a soul I want to understand suffering from there none of us could have been completely clean people in all our lifetimes we all would have done mistakes that's why we're still in this realm uh do you think of the higher realm do you think of what's next because you're diving into these


think of what's next because you're diving into these subjects of Shiva and Vishnu and seventh uh seven planes Etc this is something I've been thinking about so much that why the am I trying to make money like the thing is what is you know what is the purpose of your life is it to earn money or actually do something which gives your life purpose I feel if you think that the purpose of your life is to make money uh you're wasting time and not pursuing the actual purpose which is getting the hell out of here okay let me let me tell you a few things the way our ancestors located but before that let me tell you something intriguing because you know most of your listeners would of course know a lot of the Rings and would know Game of Thrones now see the life story of the person who wrote The Lord of the Rings trilogy Jr Tolkien he passed through he went through the wars the world was right he lost many friends in there he genuinely suffered


lost many friends in there he genuinely suffered right but you look at his books they're all of nobility of you know strong characters both both male and female uh uh you know of of the right way to live moralistic right uh uh and you see uh George RR Martin right among the he's a baby boomer among the most privileged Generations in human history he dodged the draft from what one knows he never saw a war very peaceful very wonderful life and look at his books and dark lack of morality almost there's almost no character was any you know real nobility who who will not let circumstances make him or her do things which he knows he should not do right so is it that suffering makes a person Noble is that the lesson from Jr Tolkien and is it that you had no real problems to using yeah there are no morals to whatever the hell you want do you have any input to that question there is suffering exists for a purpose that's what I was you


exists for a purpose that's what I was you know saying in from a suffering actually makes you Noble like I said resistance makes your soul stronger right uh if you get so much suffering that your soul just breaks yes that's and that happens to some people sometimes you just can't handle it anymore but if you have no real suffering you know yeah then black glycode you've seen Game of Thrones right no no one has any sense of morality you know out there and how will you build a gold world like that going back to this uh you know the thing of making money one of our one of our principals our ancestors used to say was that to lead a good life you need to follow the four purushartas right uh and you need to find balance between all four of them in this context is not male purush is Life Energy and Arthur right so what are the four purusharthas the first is Arthur which is wealth power you know you need that right so in India


power you know you need that right so in India was a poor country for many centuries and frankly no one no one cared about how deep our philosophies were right so you need Arthur then you need Karma and Karma is misread as just eroticism it's not that it's all the sensual pleasures of life music dance everything which makes life beautiful which brings out the rasas of life right which brings out feel good hormones exactly you need that too third you need Dharma right and Dharma is erroneously translated as religion very often Dharma is that which balances that which sustains that which is the right thing to do right that's what Dharma is so if you're making money by doing smuggling that's not Dharma right uh and the fourth is moksh uh which is not to die and there is no you know ultimate Kingdom where you'll have fairies foreign you want to have a death which ends all deaths right because among there's this lovely line Socrates had said that death may


this lovely line Socrates had said that death may be the greatest of all human blessings but actually the greatest blessing is a death to end all debts when you don't have to die again again and again you need to find that balance so that you can get mocks you can get Nirvana so our ancestors believed that you need all four you need Arthur you need Karma you need Dharma you need Moksha when you have all four then it's a good life right and all foreign balance you find so many people who've just focusing on earning money right they're not enjoying the rasas of life there's no Dharma in their life they're so unhappy right uh if and you find someone who just says I'm going to give it all up you know and live in the mountains live in a cave but they're actually thinking about their friends who are you know partying are they happy too right uh so you need a balance of all four that's what our ancestors told us so I


that's what our ancestors told us so I mean I don't know if this is just a reflection of my own character but I feel anyone who's inclined towards spiritualism of any form and you are one of those people is always inclined towards studies related to Darkness uh for example I'm doing it through the show I'm sure that when you're writing books there are certain dark research topics you go about at this stage of your life you're in your 40s I'm 47. at 47 are you learning about new forms of Darkness are you thinking more about death like is garud puran a part of you know your studies yes I've thought of death a lot in the last seven eight years like I said I've lost uh uh I've lost uh too many people uh and like I said some in very tragic ways um uh and people I really admired you know at some levels you think maybe the other side is is better but that's not a good conversation to have um but there is no uh as


conversation to have um but there is no uh as you get deeper into our philosophies you realize there's no need to fear death right um because it's not that at least in the in the Pagan wave you know what is pejoratively called Pagan and the entire world was Pagan Once Upon a Time India is the only among the few pre-bronze age culture the only pre-bron James culture that is Sarah still survived and among the few Pagan cultures that is still alive Japan is of course you know an ancient way China is an ancient way but they're not pre-bronzage we're the only pre-bronze age one um and the bacon weighs across like even in the Greco-Roman World death was just seen as long sleep right um when uh you know when when you sleep when you are in REM sleep you do know the body gets paralyzed right the brain releases uh it switches off your motor yeah which which paralyzes your body is that a form of death why does the brain do


that a form of death why does the brain do that uh uh because that's when you're dreaming so that you don't act out your dreams and hurt yourself uh so our ancestors thought is that like a mini death you know and you do need to sleep because if you if you know you don't know that if you don't sleep you'll and you'll die you'll you'll destroy your health sleep is very very important so if you see it from that perspective from the way of our ancestors is death just a recharge time for the soul right you're in petrolok you're in the land of uh of the ancestors it's believed that three generations stay in petrolo and there the concept of time is very different from our concept of time time is not you know moving in a linear manner can you talk a little bit about in in the way of the dharmic religions which is Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism is where the ancestral souls go right uh after death and


the ancestral souls go right uh after death and you'll notice uh Bureau doing we just the pitra park happens just before uh the navratri and uh you don't start any new activity at that at that time and you feed crows you know because it's believed that they carry uh nutrition to our ancestors I believe that three generations of our ancestors stay in pithra look uh uh there's there are many theories this is one among them um and that beyond that they either get moksh or they come back right towards because they have a next life uh well the theory is because the soul has found balance in petroloke no no and at the end of this life okay so then you're on right and the concept of Bodhi satwa was that that's a soul that has found balance already but does not want to take MOX wants to come back and help others okay this concept of finding balance it's not just through meditation no no no what is it finding balance through all


no no no what is it finding balance through all the Karma that you do right uh so uh uh you know it's essentially in a way kind of wiping out all dates right if you think about it if if I've in the normal Financial world I've taken a loan from you right I have a debt right and I didn't to pay that off well in the karmic world it is like someone has given me charity someone has helped I have a karmic debt I need to pay that off right uh I need to make sure I don't take on any further debts so do as much good as I can when you lead that Noble life and you balanced out all your past Karma then you get mocks right uh that's that's a concept and when you can find and that's among the things of course you need to train your soul to be in a higher place as well there are various things that that's uh that's the theory and that's what gives you more now uh so in


that's what gives you more now uh so in in pithu look then then what happens is that three of our three generations of our ancestors are are kind of out there and we have some kind of relationship with them which is what we are doing with our petrol Parks pujas everything this is the belief which is why our bodies are not considered important in the dharmic way you notice we cremate the bodies right unlike in the abrahamic way which is Islam Christianity where you bury the bodies because there the theory is you have only one life the body itself remains buried and then when Judgment Day comes the body itself will rise which is why they say Rest In Peace So you rest in peace till Judgment Day the body itself will rise which is why you have the concept of the undead which is if they have risen before Judgment Day right whereas in in the dharmic way we cremate the dead because the body is not important there's some Karma of the body


is not important there's some Karma of the body let us go back into the Earth your soul is important and your soul has various Journeys to take so the purpose of your life is to wipe out those dates find balance now then you live your life in a different way right it is not big you will not get moocs just because you worship a particular God it doesn't work that way right because even gods are subject to the laws of cause and effect they are subject to the laws of karma you remember at the end of the Mahabharata Lord Krishna was cursed by Ma gandhari right and what is Lord krishna's reaction to that magandari was a woman I was was just a human being right now Krishna was God himself a human being cursed God what did God do what did Lord Krishna do he didn't say how dare you this blasphemy no he told magandari ma as you wish right because even the gods are subject to the laws of karma right that


are subject to the laws of karma right that is the belief in in the dharmic way so all of us also what happens to us is in our own hands now if you think about it this way it in a way empowers you why do you need to be afraid of death you have to do what you have to do to find balance in this life if it doesn't work you have a next life right but try and do as much as you can in this life because the purpose is more so you can get into the dark thing but not get into a dark mood about it God you're getting my point I say I think you need to learn more about darkness in order to learn more about the like it's bro it's it's when you make it this massive thing when you make the put the attraction of the Forbidden on it that's when it appears larger than it actually is I will be slapping unrelated question for you but I'm just gonna like throw it at you throw it through


just gonna like throw it at you throw it through it uh when you were writing the Shiva Trilogy did you see him or her in your dreams bro it was much more intense uh uh and I I've said this often I I actually see that Universe I describe what I see it's not it's not my imagination in my books I've written 10 books okay over 12 years and my books are relatively long you've read them the 400 500 pages they're all interconnected man like the Shiva Trilogy it was you know three books interconnected ramchandra series is a 1500 year prequel to the events of the Shiva trilogy there are things which I wrote in Immortals of Melua which was published in 2010 which have been tied up in War of Lanka which is published now 2022 there is no way I can claim that I have planned all this I'm such a genius you know that it's all my creativity that's that's nonsense it's not true I I won't even claim that and it's