The Promise (Durgadas Rathore)

It's the Spring of 1680, the concluding day of the 18-day long celebrations that follow the festival of Holi, Mewar is roused and engrossed in festivities while the Maharana of Mewar, Rana Raj Singh takes a force of a thousand men and storms outside of his capital Udaipur...

"What's the Rani doing here?"

"First of all, you must know, the Rani is now a widow, Rana Jaswant Singh died suddenly in Kabul"

"In Kabul! Whatever was he doing up there?"

"Quelling a rebellion against the Emperor"

"What was the cause of his death?"

"The Rani suspects that he was poisoned at the banquet of victory by orders of the Emperor because, and so she says, Aurangzeb bore a grudge against him for helping his brother Dara and opposing him at Fatehabad."

"I can't believe it. Why would the Emperor murder one of his most capable generals?"

"Well that is what the Rani says because it seems the Emperor is trying to get a more direct control over Jodhpur. It appears when she was returning with her babe Ajit, he sent soldiers to fetch her to his court, saying that he wanted to 'educate' the young prince."

"Was the Rani up there with her lord? If she was brave enough to face the cold why was she not brave enough to face the funeral pyre?"

"Because she is braver than that. She wants to live to establish her son in his rights as Rana over his father's dominions"

"Yes brother, that is truly braver, but did she not say how she escaped from the Emperor's soldiers?"

"That's the most Exciting part of the story..."

A conversation between the Princes Jai Singh and Bhim Singh of Mewar, would foreshadow the beginning of a more than thirty years long struggle for the throne of Jodhpur that was threatened by the malevolence of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb "Alamgir". Aurangzeb's ascension to the Mughal throne was followed by a wave of rebellions across what was to be his new dominion, inherited from his father and wrested from his brother. To quell the unrest in Kabul (modern day Afghanistan-West Pakistan) he had sent Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur of whose effectiveness even Kushal Khan, the celebrated Afghan Chieftain had written in his memoires, albeit and of course begrudgingly. The deployment was however set up from the start, Jaswant Singh was assassinated in Jamrud in December 1678 leaving no male heir - a conspicuous similarity to the assassination of Mirza Raja Jai Singh of Amer. The patriarchs of both the Rajput Kingdoms of Amer and Jodhpur gone, especially the latter dying heirless, gave Aurangzeb the opportunity, to set in motion his long-concealed designs, to finally strike into Marwar - the heart of Rajputana...