Bahadur [verified] — Chaar Sahibzaade: Rise Of Banda Singh
The air over Anandpur Sahib was thick with smoke and the wails of widows. The year was 1705. Young Banda Singh, then known as Lachhman Dev, a humble Bairagi recluse, felt the chill of betrayal seep into his bones. He had come to seek the blessings of Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, only to witness the aftermath of the terrible siege. The Guru’s mother, Mata Gujri, and his two younger Sahibzaade —Zorawar Singh, just nine, and Fateh Singh, only six—had been martyred. Their bodies, bricked alive by the tyrannical Nawab of Sirhind, Wazir Khan, had become a testament to a cruelty that defied comprehension.
The battle began at Chappar Chiri on a hot May morning. The Mughal elephants, armored and drunk, charged the Sikh lines. Men were crushed under their feet. For a moment, the Sikhs faltered. Banda Singh saw a young boy, barely older than Guru Gobind Singh’s martyred sons, drop his sword and run.
But as the sun set over Delhi, the Mughals saw a strange sight. From the hills of Punjab, a new flame had been lit. The Sahibzaade were dead. Banda Singh was dead. But the Khalsa—the community of the pure—had been baptized in fire. They had learned that a saint without a sword is a coward, and a sword without a saint is a tyrant. chaar sahibzaade: rise of banda singh bahadur
He found Guru Gobind Singh in the forest of Machhiwara, the great warrior-poet lying on a cot, his face etched with a sorrow so deep it had carved new lines into his skin. The Guru looked up, and their eyes met.
“You seek liberation, recluse?” the Guru asked, his voice a low rumble. The air over Anandpur Sahib was thick with
Banda Singh felt the weight of the Guru’s kada (iron bracelet) slide onto his wrist. It was cold, but it burned. He was no longer a wandering holy man. He was the arm of the Guru’s wrath.
And so, the story of Banda Singh Bahadur is not an end. It is the beginning of the long, bloody, glorious dawn of the Sikh Empire—a dawn paid for by the blood of the four princes and the hermit who became their thunderbolt. He had come to seek the blessings of
Wazir Khan swung his scimitar. Banda Singh parried. The two men—the Nawab who had killed children, and the hermit who had become a warrior—stood face to face.