_{The legendary Rajpur warrior Maharana Pratap Singh on his famed horse Chetak}

The glorious saga of Rajput valour

Today is the 478th Birth Anniversary of Maharana Pratap Singh, the illustrious king of Mewar. He is famous in the history for upholding his principles and values to retain the freedom of his kingdom and devoting his life in serving his citizens. When the mighty Mughal Emperor was expanding his kingdom in India, all rajput kings of Rajasthan surrendered to him and became his vassal. Emperor Akbar sent a number of envoys to Maharana Pratap singh too for this purpose but despite being a small kingdom, Maharana never accepted the Emperor’s offer. So war between them became inevitable.

Maharana had only 22,000 soldiers constituting some rajputs and local tribal Bheel population. With a mighty army of 2,00,000 well equipped soldiers, Akbar thought that this battle would be a mere formality. But to his surprise, Maharana fought for 12 years and retained his kingdom. The famous battle of Haldighati of 1576 remained inconclusive as Akbar couldn’t capture Maharana.

_{A hoarding inviting everyone for a free visit to Pratap Memorial today}
On the occasion of Maharana’s birthday, the famous memorial statue and hill in Udaipur is opened to everyone for free for two days. Several other functions too are held on this day. At Pratap Memorial, there is a lot of rush during these two days. This is a picture at the closing hours today. There were many guards and police vehicles to administer the crowd.

Poverty or lack of resources are not an excuse

Maharana Pratap Singh didn’t had sufficient resources and it’s said that there came a time when he and his family survived by eating chapatis prepared of grass. But he never surrendered. He didn’t had elephants but his famed horse Chetak use to jump high in the air to reach the top of the elephant. In Haldighati battle, to save Maharana’s life, Chetak jumped across a 26 feet wide canal inspite of a wounded leg.

How much weight can you lift?

Maharana Pratap had a robust built with 7.5 feet height. He used to carry a spear weighing 81 kg and used to wear an armour on his chest weighing 72 kg. He also used to carry 2 swords weighing 25 kg each. The complete set of his armour with helmet weighed 110 kg. Total weight including shield was 208 kg. He also used to have one shield for his horse Chetak. All these weapons and armour are lying in the Udaipur city museum (my city Udaipur was the capital of Mewar state). Now a days, we are not allowed to touch these weapons. But my father told me that when he was young, all weapons were displayed in open. He also tried lifting one of his swords but failed. He was amazed that it was difficult for everyone to even shake these weapons and Maharana used to carry and use them with agility.

Maharana Pratap Singh didn’t had any support from any other Rajput kings as all had surrendered to Akbar. Inspite of this, it’s said that Maharana could not be defeated and Akbar couldn’t emerge victorious. In the 1582 battle of Dewair, Mughal army was badly defeated by Maharana.

Akbar's condolence message

Maharana Pratap Singh died in an accident in 1597. On the demise of Maharana, Akbar sent a condolence message to Mewar Kingdom that he will always be regretful of the fact that he couldn’t defeat Maharana, he was really a brave warrior.