Adventures of a Brahmin Priest : My Travels in the 1857 Rebellion

A journey to north India in 1857 to mend their fortunes and visit holy places leads a Brahmin priest, Vishnubhat Godse, and his uncle straight into and through the conflict zones of the Great Uprising. Their travel turns into an adventure, a patchwork of pujas, court patronage, and miraculous escapes from fierce battles. Twenty-five years later, Vishnubhat Godse wrote Mazha Pravas. Literally, 'my journey', the narration uses nineteenth-century idiom as it describes rituals and prayer, bizarre cross-dressing, battle and blood, and, most memorably, the fall of Jhansi. Straddling both historiography and literature, this Marathi classic published in 1907, interprets the Rebellion as a righteous one and pins its failure to a moral point: in killing women and children the rebels violated the Hindu code of ethics and thus ensured their defeat. This first Indian account of the Uprising is sprinkled with anecdotes and descriptions of courtly relationships. The narrative captures the fear and hysteria of palace intrigues and above all, the valour of Rani Lakshmibai.