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When the hare beat the tortoise- Part 1

In our childhood, we have heard the story where the slow and steady tortoise won the race against the fast hare.  Little did you know that the hare had already humiliated the tortoise around 300 years ago in the 18th century India.  Let us explore the epic saga of this masterpiece of military strategy and movement. We are going to explore one of the most acclaimed battles of the 18th century where the impossible was achieved and a struggling empire found its wings to spread across India. So tighten your seatbelts! THE CALM AFTER THE STORM- The Deccan had been ravaged by a massive storm for 27 years straight. After the death of Shivaji Maharaj in 1680, Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb had descended to Deccan in 1681 and the deccan had been destroyed with continuous battle for 27 years.  Although Aurangzeb had destroyed Adilshahi of Bijapur and Qutubshahi of Hyderabad, the Marathas still stood strong under the leadership of Sambhaji Maharaj, Rajaram Maharaj and later his wife Mahar...

The Sea lion of India- Part 3

In the previous part of the blog, we saw that the Fraam was unable to even touch Vijaydurg and the British were utterly disappointed and feared that their greatest investment would turn futile.  In this part, let us see how the British navy tried to salvage their position and ultimately faced utter humiliation and chaos at the hands of the able Maratha navy.  THE BATTLE CONTINUES- After the Fraam's cannons were unable to reach even 20-30 yards away from the Fraam, the British decided to inspect the construction of the ship. It was found that the some areas of the ship were not optimally designed to enable the ship to throw cannon balls at a large distance while avoiding the enemy fire. Such were the designing skills of the so-called most powerful navy of the Indian coast at the time. The said areas were re designed which led to weakening of some areas of the Fraam. Now the distance of the cannon balls fired from the Fraam increased a little.  Meanwhile, the warships Chand...