Shaniwar Wada

During the early days of the Maratha empire, the office of the Peshwa was created by Shivaji essentially to serve as his prime minister. The first peshwa, Moropant Pingle, was appointed as the chief of a council of eight ministers in 1674 CE. Under Shahu, the position was given in 1713 to Balaji Vishwanath. On his death in 1719, his son, Baji Rao was appointed the Peshwa, and from then it became a hereditary post. The empire reached its largest extent under Baji Rao I. In 1732 he started building Shaniwar Wada, his seat in Pune. Although Satara remained the capital, with the eclipse of the titular king by his minister, Pune, and Shaniwar Wada became the seat of power.

I’d visited the place before, but not with The Family. This time around there was no ticket counter. Instead a QR code directed you to a complex web site on which you had to make an online payment. When we entered through the impressive Delhi gate, we saw before us the base of a levelled building serving as a nice garden. The Maratha empire was dissolved in 1818 after its defeat to the British East India Company. The Company took charge of the Wada, and it mysteriously burnt down to the ground in 1828. A plaque said that the fire raged for ten days. We looked at the stones of the base and the bricks of the walls. When Baji Rao started to build in stone brought from the quarried of Chinchwad, he was told by Shahu that it was the king’s prerogative to build in stone. The peshwa used bricks to complete the palace.

Most of the tall trees inside the walls were ashoka (Saraca asoca), easy to tell by its straight trunk and the long leaves with crinkly edges. Interestingly, although this is now found everywhere in South Asia, its native range was the area around here. Among them were a few impressively gnarly ficus trees. In the last forty years we have watched a ficus tree grow, and know that trees which are as old as an average human can give the impression of great age. I was happy to see again a zombie door. Many years ago I’d coined the term ghost door for a section of a wall where you can see an old doorway which has been filled in. Zombie doors are reanimated. A ghost door has been given a second life by cutting a smaller doorway into it. In the photo above, you can see both the ghost and its zombie incarnation. The last time I’d written about these doors I’d expressed the wish that someone would write an architectural history of the Wada. I’m still waiting for it.

We strolled along to another part of the wall. This looks like the only bit of the palace which was not burnt to the ground. There was a remnant of a separate building in front of it. By the holes left for posts, the pillars must have been elaborately carved. A plaque nearby told us that we were looking at the remnant of a dance pavilion. I am sure there are contemporary paintings of these places. It would be good to have a book brings them together.

Easily the most impressive remnant of the disappeared palace is the entrance, the Delhi gate. Building a gate opening north was a statement of an ambition which Baji Rao’s master, Shahu was uncomfortable with. The Marathas eventually got to control a large part of the Mughal empire, but never won Delhi. The door is enormous, and could easily admit two elephants. The defensive spikes at the height of an elephant’s head, and the cutaway door at human scale serve to tell you the door’s size. The teak of the door is reinforced by iron bands, with sharp defensive knobs set into it. The palace complex was never stormed.