Invoking the sacred fire...

Chapter 6The Long Year
The Rani of Jhansi
झाँसी की रानी
Manikarnika of Bithoor, widowed and dispossessed by Dalhousie's Doctrine of Lapse, becomes the Rani Lakshmibai. Twenty-nine years old, four sabres at her belt, twelve thousand troops at her command, ten months of sovereign rule from her rock-built citadel at Jhansi.