In 2011, when Anil Nalawade, playwright and co-founder of NGO Saisha Foundation Mumbai, approached historian Babasaheb Purandare with the draft of songs he had penned on Chhatrapati Shivaji, the latter was impressed. After pouring over the lyrics, Purandhare made a few suggestions. He felt there were some important people that Nalawade could include. For instance, there was Bahirji Naik, one of Shivaji's closest aides. "In the words of Chanakya, spies are the eyes and ears of the kingdom, and that's exactly what Naik, head of Shivaji's intelligence department, was to the Marathas. The speed and accuracy of his inputs at a time when there was no form of electronic communication, is the stuff of legend," he tells us over the phone from Pune, where he lives in his ancestral wada. 

Babasaheb Purandare