The empire also resulted in the voluntary relocation of substantial numbers of Maratha and other Marathi-speaking people outside Maharashtra, and across a big part of India. Thus, there are today several small but significant communities descended from these emigrants living in the north, south and west of India. These communities tend often to speak the languages of those areas, although many do also speak Marathi in addition. Gujarati, Hindi, Konkani, Kannada, Telugu and Tamil are some of the other languages thus spoken Zinjurke's of Shirur...
Kondana fort, on the outskirts of Pune, was still under Mughal control. Uday Bhan Rathod, the fort keeper, led an army of about 1500 Rajputs and Mughals for the protection of the fort. On February 4, 1670 Shivaji deputed one of his most senior and trusted generals, Tanaji Malusare, to head a mission to capture Kondana. Tanaji Malusare surveyed the fort and its defenses for some days. The fort was extremely well guarded. One very sheer cliff caught Tanaji's eye. This side was least guarded as one could not possibly imagine climbing the fort from this steep side. Tanaji decided to scale this cliff to enter the fort. He used a monitor lizard(known as ghorpad in Marathi named "Yeshwanti" with a rope tied around its body for climbing this cliff on a moonless night.[citation needed] Perhaps this was the first time in the history of wars where a lizard was used to climb a fort.[citation needed] As the advance party reached the top, they threw ropes for others to climb. Meanwhile...
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