"As a child, I listened to my father's tales about Shivaji Maharaj every night before sleeping. He dramatized them with higher voice and tempo while describing battle scenes. He linked them our family's history. I felt them creep through my ear into my brain, and my blood. Whenever I saw the Chattrapati's picture then, what struck me most was the punch dagger tucked in his waistband. I felt the Chattrapati must really like that dagger he's always holding. And I felt, that whatever the Chattrapati liked, I must like too."
Girish Jadhav, a 58 year old Senior Manager with a multinational, strikes a stance from the Hanmanti school of sword fighting (an ancient school followed by the Maratha army), holding a 11th century punch dagger. He jumps and twirls, forming a perfect semi-arc to demonstrate an ideal thrust, which the weapon was designed for. He does this deftly, in little space, because the small room he lives in at Pune is crowded with three beds besides his own, occupied by three other lodgers he shares it with. He keeps a handful of weapons here in the corner of a shared cupboard. His one room-kitchen residence in Kurla, Mumbai, where his wife and children stay, contains 700 odd antique weapons, from the 11th century onwards, belonging to the period in between the rise and the fall of the Maratha empire.
The collection comprises different kinds of punch daggers, swords, sword handles, shields, spears, war axes, arrows, tiger claws, head gear, battle armour, kukris and some pistols. Carefully maintained and kept wrapped in cloth or canvas, they leave hardly any place for clothes or utensils.
His weapons collection has seen 180 exhibitions throughout the country and won him many awards and medals from historians and government bodies. On his desk in Pune lie some sample weapons he has short listed to be sent to London, for a possible exhibition. Next to these lie notes for a book he's working on, to be titled 'The History Of Weaponry'. And next to those lie information to be sent to Nitin Desai (the man behind many a Bollywood historical) for a serial he's producing on Shivaji, along with Jadav's many weapons, which will serve as models for duplicate weapons to be made for the serial.
Jadhav's first antique weapon, "obviously, the Maratha punch dagger", was bought at age 30 in Pune's Old Bazaar. "I knew exactly where to find it, because I had scoured the market for it, for many years," he remembers. "I had dreamt of buying it since childhood, but had to wait till I had earned enough money." But no yearning so old will be easily satisfied, and so, 40 weapons followed. "This was when friends and colleagues started talking about what I had, at business meetings even," he says. "And I became a 'collector'." A friend got some school children to see his collection. "One of them told his history teacher, who asked me for an exhibition in his school," he relates. "And the idea of holding exhibitions for the public hit me." These exhibitions brought local journalists and consequent write-ups, spreading his fame further. "I received 80 letters after the first write-up," he says incredulously. "Some from villagers who said they would pray to God that I can carry on this 'noble work'."
His marketing job enabled him to travel to towns like Surat, Balsar, Bilaspur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Bijapur which were valuable sources for weapons from the Maratha period. "My last marketing call would be at 5, after which I would ask people around me where to find antiques in the city," he says. "I was particularly interested in places where wars were fought during this period." Well wishers contributed to his cause in cash and kind. So while it took him many an excursion to a Surat Warehouse to procure a Pre-British muzzle loading gun-powder pistol, a 400 year old Turkish Yataghan sword whose jade hilt was embedded with diamonds, rubies and gold (worth many lakhs of rupees) was gifted to him by Madhukar More. One such well wisher was famed Maratha historian Babasaheb Purandhare, who contributed to his cause with his own knowledge on the era. "Discussions with him opened a new world to me," Jadhav recounts. "I saw the link between weapons, history, places and the character of people and politics in today's India." His final step in this direction was learning to swordfight as the Marathas did then. "I went to Kolhapur to ask people, 'Who knows Hanmanti?" he says. "When some youngsters who knew the art started demonstrating, I filmed it to learn the moves." Endless attempts in this direction led to finding Katkade Guruji, who taught him the art properly. Explaining how he could discover and rescue from obscurity the remains of an 11th century cannon ball, which no one else notice, Jadhav says: "I had to. My liking for these weapons has developed into love, into obsession and then gone beyond madness."
Jadhav was not privileged enough to pursue the low-paying career of a professional historian. Yet his historical and cultural roots clutched at him too much to let him remain a 9 to 5 executive. "I didn't buy a colour TV, long after everyone else in my salary bracket had, because I needed to purchase tiger claws," he says as he begins to tear up. "I saw my children having to sneak into other's living room windows to catch their favourite serial. Yet they never once asked me to forsake my passion." Ironically the same roots that prompt such passion, prompted a mob in Mazagaon to scream "Jaanta Raja" while burning a hut housing Muslim women and children. "No person who loves a subject can misuse it," says Jadhav uncompromisingly. "An understanding of history will show you how people are connected, not how to divide them by caste, class, religion… or even region."
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