Kashibai Peshwe

Part 10- The ties that bind

In the years that followed Kashi's entry into the Bhat family household events began to take their natural course. Chimaji's wife Rakhma was still very young and lived with her parents, visiting the Bhats occasionally. Rakhma was the daughter of Vishwanath "Visaji" Krishna Pethe and the sister of Trimbakrao Pethe. Trimbakrao would eventually rise to prominence in the Peshwa army. Their family hailed from Guhagar in the Dapoli district of the Konkan where they held the position of Mukadam(chief ) of the Kasba of Guhagar.

 When she was still a toddler Anu, the favourite child of the Bhats,  had been promised to and then married off at age five to a fine boy called Venkatrao Ghorpade. At the time of the wedding the groom was seventeen, a year younger than Rau. He was the son of a warrior Narayan "Naro" Mahadev Joshi. Naro was the son of a Brahmin widow Gangabai who had left her husband's ancestral village of Mhapan in the Konkan to settle in Kapshi, the seat of the Ghorpade knight family. 

As a young boy Naro once showed exemplary courage by breaking a rather spirited horse even when he had never mounted a horse before. Because of his fearlessness the dashing lad was taken under the tutelage and personal grooming by Santaji Ghorpade, the Chief General of the Marathas during Chhatrapati Rajaram's regime (Rajaram had assumed the Maratha throne following the cruel execution of his brother Sambhaji, the first born of Chhatrapati Shivaji).

Naro Mahadev Joshi took his mentor Santaji's surname and his descendants were thereafter known as the Joshi-Ghorpades. Due to his contribution to the military campaigns of the Marathas Naro Pant was granted several Inams.Along with Ramchandra Nilkanth, Dhanaji Jadhav and Santaji he rose to become one of the foremost men in the service of the Maratha Empire. The guerilla tactics of Chhatrapati Shivaji were continued by the swashbuckling pair of Santaji and Dhanaji, and would eventually manage to bring the Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb to its knees.

Naro Pant and his wife Lakshmibai remained childless for several years before they sought the blessings of Venkoba of Giri on the advice of one Haribhat Patwardhan. When they were finally blessed with a son in 1701 the grateful couple named him Venkat after the deity. To his good fortune at the age of two Venkat was made Mansabdar of 500 horsemen when his father was granted the Inam of the village of Bhilawadi on the banks of the Krishna river. By 1712 Naro Pant had become the Pant Sachiv, one of the ministers at Sambhaji's (Shahu's stepbrother's) Court in Kolhapur and had thus risen high enough to seek a political alliance in the form of a wedding between his son and Anubai, the younger daughter of Balaji Vishwanath, after Balaji became the Peshwa to Shahu of Satara.  

In keeping with the custom of the day the young bride Anu spent a week at her in-laws home after the wedding and then returned to her father's home where she would remain till she attained puberty. Later she would be sent off with great ceremony to her husband's home so that her marriage could be consummated and she could assume the duties of a wife and homemaker. 

  By now Rau's sister Bhiu, who had attained puberty soon after Kashi, was already living with her husband Abaji Joshi, brother of the rich moneylender Balaji Baramatikar-Joshi.  She was married into a prosperous banker's family like the one Kashi had been born into, both families even sharing the surname Joshi. Even Anu was married to a Joshi but Venkatrao's father had adopted the martial tradition, similar to Balaji Vishwanath who had switched over from his ancestral profession as revenue collector to a martial one. Needless to say both men had been successful in their endeavours.

Bhiu and Kashi, who had practically grown up together, bonded very well.As young brides who had just begun to share their marital beds with their respective husbands the girls would spend stolen moments discussing their experiences whenever they got together. Anu, who could not be included in their private banter because of her age would sulk and complain to her older brother, asking him to humour her whenever he had the time.