‘Peshwa Bajirao’ – A gripping tale of the Maratha warriors

‘Peshwa Bajirao’, the new historical drama that premiered on Sony Entertainment Television at 7.30 pm on January 23, 2017, is gripping from the word go. The setting, the characters, the backdrop, the political intrigues and a look back at history makes for a refreshing change from the regular fare of family dramas. 

There is a fair amount of palace politics, but the grandeur does not distract from the storyline. The story starts with a young Chattrapati Shivaji pledging to root out the Mughals and then shifts 44 years forward, showing Balaji Vishwanath Bhat (played by Manish Wadhwa), who is Bajirao’s father, concerned about his Maratha motherland. He shares a loving relationship with his wife Radhabai (played by Anuja Sathe), who is pregnant at that time. The backdrop of the Maratha empire and the royal family is established without much melodrama. Chattrapati Shivaji is long dead and his son is on his deathbed. Even as he expresses his last wish to put his nephew Sahuji on the throne, his wife, warrior queen Tara Rani Saheb (played by Pallavi Joshi), overrides this wish and announces her five-year old son as the heir to the throne after the king’s death. 

One sure wishes we had access to such serials while studying history in school as it makes the subject way more interesting. Given the show’s subject, parents would want their kids to watch it as it introduces today’s generation to a part of India’s history and heritage. Kids would, of course, want to see a grand spectacle like the Ranveer-Deepika-Priyanka starrer ‘Bajirao Mastani’, but hopefully the serial will stay away from Bollywood kitsch. 

There are bound to comparisons with other historical shows in the recent past, such as ‘Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat’ and ‘Maharana Pratap’. Will Rudra Soni, who is essaying the role of young Bajirao, stand his own ground? Time will tell. We will see if his words hold steadfast – ‘Jo hathi nahi, woh Marathi nahin’. 

The inaugural episode has set the tone for the promise to come, now it remains to be seen how the story develops. We sure are waiting to see young Bajirao’s advent.

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