Some people live like candles—they burn quietly, giving light without demanding attention. Gajanan Bhaskar Mehendale was one such rare soul. For those of us who had the privilege of spending some time with him, his passing feels like losing not just a person, but an entire institution.

Mehendale Sir, or Gajabhau as he was known to his friends and disciples, was a scholar beyond labels. Most people know him as the historian who gave us works like Shivaji: His Life and Times in English and Shri Raja Shiv Chhatrapati in Marathi, still considered the most authoritative works on Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. But he was so much more than that.

A postgraduate in Defence Studies, he had an abiding interest in military strategy. In 1971, he reported as a war correspondent from the battlefields of the India–Pakistan war, witnessing the birth of Bangladesh. His curiosity stretched far beyond Maratha history—to the World Wars, cryptography, and even modern geopolitics. Born in 1947, Mehendale sir pursued knowledge not for accolades but for truth.

Mehendale sir’s greatest strength lay in his meticulous use of primary sources. To read Shivaji in his own times, he mastered Modi script, Persian, Urdu, even Portuguese. Decades of work at the Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal in Pune gave........

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