Historical fiction: The fascinating life of Kanhoji Angre, Shivaji’s fearsome naval commander

It is the month of Shravan. A squadron of hawks keeps watch, circling amidst low clouds. After a pampered pregnancy and fat with fried mackerel roe, Ambabai gives birth to a son on Ravivar. It is the auspicious day of Nariyel Purnima. Ambabai has returned to her father’s house in Shitole to give birth. Tukoji is in Suvarnadurg preparing for the homecoming of his son. His son’s nursery is painted yellow with turmeric and limestone, and he makes sure the newly painted room is scrubbed with generous amounts of cow dung and urine slurry. But Tukoji cannot wait. His son is already two weeks old, so he goes up to Shitole on his finest steed with the most thoughtfully appointed carts to bring his beloved wife and his young son back home.

For the birth of his son, he had made sure a jyothshi was at hand in Shitole to record the time of his birth and draw his astrological chart. The moon did not set that day. The jyothshi checks twice and then once again with the assistance of his clearer-eyed assistant. The Navagrahas have aligned for his birth. His rashi is Kumbha.

“This boy is protected by the Sun, Moon and Sea. His chart looks like that of a king, a king with many sons,” the jyothshi informs Tukoji.

Overjoyed, Tukoji bathes the harbinger of prosperous calculations in borrowed silver coins.

Tukoji in his thirties is more patient but has eyes only for his eldest, looking at his son with great amusement and letting him do what he wills. The boy is deliciously fat: every ponytailed girl and toothless hag takes turns to count the rings he has on his arms and thighs, comparing him to the butter thief god. They name him Kanho. His dark eyes are alive and sparkling with curiosity and his neck is always straining to look farther and farther. Ambabai holds him to her chest for the first two years and then he must share a breast with the younger sister. As he begins to toddle, a maid and his sais’s son replace Ambabai’s constant surveillance. They attempt to follow the growing boy as he licks, tears and pokes at everything around him. He likes being carried outside and directs with an outstretched finger the way up to the bastions and chuckles with the sea breeze on his face where his mother has dabbed two – for good measure – big black circles of kajal to ward off envious eyes.

When the monsoon comes and he has had a taste of its fat, cooling drops, he constantly wails till he is taken outside. There are arguments between husband and wife.

“He will die of the cold and fever. Who takes the child out in the rain like that?” she says.

Tukoji does, astride his favourite mare, his son sitting in front of him, his palm shielding the boy’s ecstatic face, laughing in the rain.

With the grace of Khandoba of Jejuri, Kanho is healthy and strong-limbed. Curious and energetic, his cheeks have melted away and he resists sleeping. His days are spent clambering the rocks and catching crabs and starfish with the toddlers from the adjacent fishing village.

On the evening of a harrying day, Tukoji overhears Kanho’s maid: “If you don’t go to sleep, the big naag that lives in the wall will bite your eyes.”

He is livid and scolds her for scaring his son. The next day, the woman is absent: unwell with fear.

Ambabai tells Tukoji she can’t replace such a dedicated guardian, her second child is just a four-month-old infant, and has come out early, “so don’t scare everyone away”.

Tukoji is the senior of the two Sarnaubats at Suvarnadurg. With Killedar Mohite always away at his estate at Talsure, he runs the fort. They have three rooms not far from the water reservoir and a few servants to look after their needs. Their life is simple and Ambabai has some silver, but very little gold. His stable, always teetering and tottering is doing better. He found a new sais, hanging by a short noose, on a pipal tree, the Pashtoon incarnation of Ashvavira. Tukoji cut him down, and now for shelter and anonymity, he works for him.

Tukoji and his family all sleep in the same room. The infant sleeps in a cradle beside Ambabai, and Kanho is between her and Tukoji’s side by the door. Having eaten before dusk, his wife and children are in bed early: too early for little Kanho. The infant is fast asleep snuggling against her mother. Kanho’s legs are in the air as he tries to somersault to where his father sleeps.

“Go to sleep,” Ambabai admonishes Kanho.

“After Baba comes. Where is Baba?” Kanho asks his mother.

“He is busy with the Majumdar, go to sleep, close your eyes,” she commands.

Kanho is bored. “Tell me a story,” he asks.

“There once was a king called Dasratha.”

“No, not the same one, another story.”

Ambabai tells him of the Siddi, a line of Abyssinian warlords who hold twelve forts along the coast, including the impregnable one-off Rajpura called Janjira.

“Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, a giant Habshi hid himself and his men in barrels and lay adrift near Janjira,” she tells him. The story describes how the first Siddi, a corsair for the Sultan of Ahmednagar, smuggled his troops into the fort in crates and barrels, for that was the only way to enter this ancient fort, with guile.

“They are still there, his successors – elected from amongst the Habshi captains of the Konkan. It is blessed by four freshwater springs though the fort sits surrounded by the sea,” she says.

“So let him sit in his fort,” is Kanho’s response.

“Oh, that he does during the day, but at night he comes out from a secret tunnel that connects to Rajapuri. Black against the black night, he is invisible,” Ambabai says.

“Then what does he do?”

“First he looks for little children who are playing outside after the sun has set. He can smell them because they have not taken a bath. After he catches all of them, he starts looking for children who are awake.”

“What does he do with them?” Kanho asks anxiously.

“Some he eats and others he packs into dhows and sends them across the seas for his giant family to eat,” she says in a scary voice.

Tukoji comes in, having bathed, and lies down on his bed and listens to the rest of Ambabai’s story. “They are not giants or rakshasas,” Tukoji assures his son. He will need to find a gurukul for the boy.

Excerpted with permission from Angria: A Historical Odyssey, Sohail Rekhy, Penguin India.