History – Onake Obavva – {Ep.197} – Stories From India – Podcast

An 18th-century story about how a woman, Onake Obavva, defended Chitradurga from invading soldiers with just a pestle! Also featuring: a slightly modified version of Whack-a-mole!

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you exciting and fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re talking about a real character from history. This one is a lady from 18th century Karnataka. A character who single handedly took on dozens of enemy soldiers and crushed them – figuratively and literally. 

The story begins in the 1770s, which was a notable decade. Thousands of miles away, the Americans were issuing their Declaration of Independence. Closer to home, the East India Company was spreading its tentacles beyond just East India.

And around this time, there was a regional rivalry in what is now the State of Karnataka. On one side was Hyder Ali, the Sultan and later ruler of much of the state. On the other was Madakari Nayaka. But this wasn’t a fight between these two rulers. The ones who fought the battle were the soldiers in each army.

And at the moment it was Madakari Nayaka who was on the backfoot. And by that I mean that he was in the fort of Chitradurga and couldn’t get out, because the fort was besieged by Hyder Ali’s troops. 

If you grew up on a steady diet of cartoons, maybe you have heard of Tom and Jerry. A common theme has the cat sitting outside waiting to inflict one injury after another the moment the mouse tries to sneak out of its home. Well, that’s the siege of Chitradurga in a nutshell.

It works with Itchy and Scratchy too, if you prefer a Simpsons reference.

The people of Chitradurga couldn’t get out. Were there enough provisions inside the mouse home to outlast the patience of the cat? It seemed like in just a matter of days, Hyder Ali’s troops were going to break down the resistance here.

But somehow days turned into weeks, and the people of Chitradurga were holding out just fine.

Hyder Ali was getting a little annoyed in the situation room in his bunker. His generals had just informed him that their attempts to move in on the castle had failed. Hyder Ali was shaking with rage, as he took off his glasses and ordered everyone except his three closest generals to leave the room. When they left, Hyder Ali began screaming at them. What had they been doing? He wanted results! Had they spent years at Military School only to learn how to hold a fork and knife? Look at him, he was illiterate but he was going to rule all of Mysore. And he clearly meant Mysore, the state which was more impressive to be ruler of. Nothing against Mysore the city – he loved the place personally but it was just a little smaller than Mysore the state.

One of the generals pointed out that it wasn’t yet 1780 when Hyder Ali’s territory would be at its largest. That only irked Hyder Ali even more. If the general was so smart, why hadn’t he tried dropping rocks on the fort from the sky? The general tried to say that it was because the air force hadn’t been invented yet, but Hyder Ali said that sounded like a you problem not a me problem. 

Right away sir, I’ll get on it sir. The general said and disappeared. 

The others left too, all except one. This general mustered the courage to speak up. He said he might know why Chitradurga had been able to hold out for so long. There was a small secret passage into the fort. He knew because he had accidentally noticed a milkmaid, a newspaper boy and an Amazon Prime delivery person sneaking through it. They were definitely delivering and picking up things. He knew where the entrance was. But he hadn’t brought this up before in case there were spies. But he was preparing to launch a sneak attack. Some soldiers, about 20, would sneak in and catch as many of the soldiers inside the fort by surprise as they could. They would make their way to the fort gates and open them from the inside.

Hyder Ali was genuinely impressed and said so. Why, if this general was successful, Hyder Ali would grant him half the gold in Kolar. Well, let’s say a third. No actually a quarter was more reasonable. Had to think of budget season next year. So could the general launch his sneak attack? He had 10% of Kolar’s gold to look forward to, which was a nice round number.

The general said that the sneak attack was planned for tomorrow at lunch time, when a lot of the chitradurga guards would either be eating or taking a post-lunch nap. And also he thanked Hyder Ali for the 10% of gold from the Kolar Gold Fields.

5% corrected Hyder Ali.

Inside the Chitradurga fort the mood was very different. People were trying to be as casual as they could. There were guards at various points along the fort walls. In the rocky section where the secret passage emerged, there were no guards posted. That may sound strange, but it was deliberate. Posting a guard there might direct the attention of any spies towards it. And if the enemy found the passage they might launch an attack that way. So basically, the hole was not guarded.

A guard was indeed posted somewhat near the hole. And he might ostensibly have observed the hole if he had craned his neck a little. But that guard was now home for lunch. And that’s what made Hyder Ali’s General’s plan so brilliant. As he was home eating Dosas, he complained that his wife, Obavva, hadn’t made enough chutney for him. Obavva said no biggie she could make some more. She even had the spices ready in her mortar, she just needed some water. So she would just step away quickly to the well.

Obavva’s husband grumbled about why she couldn’t have just drawn water earlier. Obavva sweetly replied that she totally would have, except if he hadn’t noticed there was a war on. Water was limited. She wasn’t doing her civic duty if she drew too much from the well.

She stepped away quickly before he could retort. One of these days, this patriarchy was going to drive her mad, she thought.

She had wanted to fight for her country. At the first sign of war with Hyder Ali’s forces, she had tried to enlist. But she was laughed off by the army recruiter. Specifically, he had said, “Go back to your kitchen, woman. If you start fighting, who will cook for us?”

Once, she tried telling her husband that she wanted a sword. But he just told her that she didn’t need a sword to chop onions, she had a kitchen knife for that. And to stop bothering him now, because he had to go on guard duty.

Which meant he wanted to go take a nap. He was guarding a section of the wall that no human or monitor lizard could scale. He was definitely just ticking the box.

Obavva reached the well and took some water and started making chutney right there. It was more efficient than walking back and forth if she needed more water. And that’s when she heard a scraping noise. Not the one from her own mortar and pestle. This was something else coming from the direction of the secret passage. The milkmaid and newspaper boy and the Amazon Prime delivery guy had all been for the day already. There was something else going on here. Were there any guards around? No, it seemed like. But she didn’t want to scream. Even if she was loud, it might bring just one or two guards and that wouldn’t be enough. Besides, it might just be an animal. She sneaked up carefully, pestle still in her hand. The moment she saw what was coming out of the hole, she got a chill down her spine. It was a turban, distinctively worn by Hyder Ali’s soldiers and it was emerging from the hole. And it had a whole soldier attached to it.

Quickly, Obavva hid behind a rock next to the hole. She waited for the soldier to be more than halfway through the hole, and then she brought down her heavy pestle with full force on the back of the soldier’s head. She didn’t care to check if the soldier was still alive. Because Obavva had a feeling she wasn’t done here. She heard a little bit from shuffling and scraping and another soldier started emerging out of the hole. This soldier hadn’t heard the noise of Obavva knocking out the first one. And because she had moved the body, he didn’t see anything either. He did see stars during the daytime, because Obavva again brought down her pestle hard on the back of his skull as well. She repeated this again and again. Even when the supply of soldiers gave out, she did not budge from the hole. She stood there, alert. By now she had mastered the position from which she could achieve maximum damage for minimum effort.

But she didn’t need that anymore. Down below, Hyder Ali’s troops were wondering why the fort doors hadn’t opened yet. And also, why it was so awfully quiet. They were certainly expecting a few screams and cries if enemy soldiers had indeed snuck in and began wreaking havoc inside the fort. They would have to keep waiting.

Back in the fort, Obavva’s husband was grumpy and angry as he finally tracked her down.

When he saw her, he said “I’ve been suffering here. I didn’t get my chutney, I had to eat my dosa with just sambar. And here you are playing whack-a-mole”

I’m just kidding. Obavva’s husband was shocked but ecstatic! Besides whack-a-mole is the wrong analogy there, because it has multiple holes and a single mole that keeps emerging, as opposed to multiple soldiers coming out of a single hole. 

Anyway, Obavva’s husband was thrilled that his wife had stopped 20 enemy soldiers single handedly! Their household deserved a medal or something. No one else in his social circle had a body count greater than zero.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

The story does have a tragic ending. Probably due to exhaustion, Obavva passed away that night. Madakari Nayak learned his lesson that day, and had the hole guarded. But it didn’t change the outcome too much. Within a year or two, Chitradurga had fallen. Madakari Nayak was taken prisoner, and Hyder Ali moved on to conquering the rest of what became the Kingdom of Mysore.

Hyder Ali was the father of Tipu Sultan, who many probably know was the ruler of the state of Mysore. Tipu Sultan was Character of the Week back in Episode 20.

Chitradurga also features in the Mahabharata. It’s a place where Bhima in-laws live, and appropriately, they like tossing large boulders. But we’ll cover that story when we get to that part of the Mahabharata.

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’ll continue the story of Chandrakanta, as some of you have requested. We’ll see what happens as Aiyyaars continue to try to outwit each other.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Thank you Rez for the comments, and thank you for suggesting last week’s story in the first place!

Thank you also to YSR and Aarush and Vamsi.

Vamsi – I agree with you – it feels like a loose end that the scholar got out of it without any punishment, and with a worthy son-in-law as a bonus. But I’ve often found that with stories from India, our gods and goddesses tend to be forgiving. To contrast, take Orpheus as an example – all he did was to give in to temptation. But after that, he was either torn apart by wild beasts, or attacked by followers of Dionysus, or hit by a thunderbolt from Zeus, or maybe all of these.

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or tweet @sfipodcast, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!