“Onake” Obavva lived in the fort town of Chitradurga at a rough time in its history. Hyder Ali, one of the most powerful warlords of the time, had been going buck wild with his army, conquering town after town. Chitradurga, blissfully, had been left out of it, due to its leader being cool with Hyder. Until said leader decided to switch sides. This was a move that did not go unnoticed by Ali, nor unpunished.

But Ali had a problem: Chitradurga was a total pain in the ass to get into. After multiple attacks, bribes, and meetings with informants he found one weakness: a tiny hole in the wall (a kindi), that could fit one person at a time. Figuring that even that was better than nothing, he hatched a plan: he’d send in troops single-file. When enough had entered, they would start attacking. They even knew that the guard for that area regularly took off for lunch. Ali had thought of everything.

Everything, that is, save the guard’s wife. Enter “Onake” Obavva.

Hyder was not wrong on the guard being a bit of a doof. Sure enough, he wandered back home, started stuffing his face, pausing only to request water. Since they had none in the house, Obavva went to a stream near the kindi to refill their supply – only to find Hyder’s soldiers approaching the fort. Realizing her city was about to be invaded, she grabbed a heavy pestle nearby and proceeded to set the Indian high score for whack-a-mole.

Within seconds of the first soldier popping his head out of the kindi, she had caved it in with her onake. Calmly, she dragged out his lifeless body, shoved it to the side, and set up for the next soldier.

Unfortunately for the soldiers, they were in stealth mode. So when soldier #2 didn’t hear anything from soldier #1, that was totally the plan – he wasn’t supposed to be making any noise! Really, from that perspective, she was just helping them out, as none of them would make noise ever again.

The next bit of her life went something like this:

Whack head. Crush skull. Shove corpse.

Whack head. Crush skull. Shove corpse.

Whack head. Crush skull. Shove corpse.

Again. And again. And again.

Meanwhile, her oblivious husband was just chowing down on some roti.

After a truly exhausting amount of homicide, her thirsty husband wandered out for some water – only to find his bloodied, panting wife standing over a towering pile of corpses. In some tellings, by this point she had murdered upwards of a hundred men.

Her husband sounded the alarm, and the guards finally reinforced the poor beleaguered woman, pushing back the invaders. She died that day, although the reasons vary from telling to telling. In most versions, one of the invaders finally got through and fatally stabbed her (and had his head subsequently caved in for his trouble). In others, she dropped dead of exhaustion — which, if the hundred man murder spree is true, is somewhat understandable.

Oh, and she was part of the Beda community, a group considered by some to fall under the Dalit (“untouchable”) grouping in the caste system . Which is pretty rad.

So here’s to Obavva: whack-a-mole champion, South India division, 1777-present.

IN OTHER MEDIA

Unsurprisingly, Obavva shown up in a couple movies (although this poorly-reviewed 2011 one seemingly has almost nothing to do with her). She also has more than one musical number devoted to her. You can find a couple on YouTube — this one is my favorite on account of her awesome rage face at around the 5 minute mark.

(enjoy the art? you can get it as a poster, shirt or phone case!)