Bharat Ki Kahani

Mir Khalil, an officer in the Mughal bureaucracy was sent to the Deccan in the year 1649-50 as the Chief of the Artillery. In his harem, he held a ravishing beauty, Zainabadi by name, who was known to mesmerize the senses through her skills in music and the art of blandishment. One day Prince Aurangzeb, who was then serving as the governor of Deccan, went to the Ahu-Khana (deer park) of Burhanpur with an entourage of his concubines for a stroll. Zainabadi was there too; she had come along with Mir Khalil’s wife (who also happened to be the prince’s maternal aunt). Brimming with mirth and amorous charm, she leapt up and plucked a fruit, unaware that the prince was present there and watching her. In the usual course, failing to display proper respect for a member of the royal family would invite swift punishment and chastisement. But in this instance, it was the prince who was robbed of his equanimity and self-control. From that day he could not stop thinking of the heavenly beauty

  Shivaji's plunder of Surat (6-10 th  January 1664) Surat was arguably one of the richest cities in the world during the seventeenth century. It was the principal port of the most prosperous empire in the world. Gujarati merchants traded across all major trade routes of the world, and their wealth was legendary. Surat fortress was impregnable for a cavalry force. But the city adjacent to it was entirely undefended. There was not even so much as a wall by way of a defensive structure. The Mughal empire was at the peak of its power at the time, and it was not imagined that some group of brigands could dare to mount a raid on its principal port. Early in the morning of Tuesday, 5 th  January 1664, Surat city administration received the alarming news that Shivaji was encamped with a cavalry force 28 miles to the south of Surat and seemed poised to advance over the city. Panic spread throughout the city. The poor were seen moving across the Tapti River with their valuables, women and c