The journey through labyrinthine lanes of Dal Mandi in Varanasi, riding pillion on a motorcycle, ended dramatically when a bull blocked our way. The driver skirted around, I rolled and landed on the doorstep of Jamil Kashmiri, son of Agha Hashar Kashmiri, the doyen of Parsi theatre to meet resource persons linked with courtesans.
Entering the house, I met Sharafat and Khurshid Ali Khan of Chahnama Mohalla who played with a league of famous ganikas as traditional women performers were called and shared elaborate information on tawa’ifs of which an incident narrated was: “Some baijis went out of their way to support freedom fighters. Dhaneshri Bai who lived in the house behind the police station in Chowk braved and provided shelter reportedly to Chandrashekhar Azad who was running from the British. Who would have thought to check the house of a tawa’if?”
In the discourse of cultural nationalism which started in mid-19th century and gained momentum in the 20th century, an important aspect was the creation of the category of the ‘classical’ performing arts. A process that saw the marginalisation and subversion of the largest category of women performers in public space known as tawa’ifs in the North, devadasis in the South and the maharis of Odhisa. They came to be perceived as prostitutes and social pollutants by the growing ‘respectable’ middle classes engaged in social reform and national movements. Ironically, they were resurrected as exotic femme fatale in popular movies and ever since their image is cashed on by the creative and cultural industry. Theirs is an untold subaltern narrative relevant to urban history, sociology, performing arts and gender studies.
Social politics
The performing arts traditions remained outside the patronage frame of the British Empire. It was left to the people of India at large to support the arts and creative communities. Grouped in intricate caste categories, performing arts communities including the women performers were aligned to patrons in fascinating patterns that were both formal and informal. It was reflected in a large number of performative spaces such as courts, temples, bazaars, houses of elites, streets and other community spaces which allowed simultaneous equations of performers with variety of patrons.
The process to categorise the arts as classical and folk began only at the beginning of 20th century as part of cultural nationalism. Stalwarts such as Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande, backed by courtly patronage, began the codification of music and musical instruments. The modality of this process manifested itself as a new module called ‘All India Music conferences’. These were patronised by Princely India and powerful landed elites. The conference models (comprising seminars and performances) were more about music than dance. Predominantly dominated by males, both as organisers and as performers, the female performers were rarely featured. For example, the coming of Balasawarswati to perform Bharatanatyam in the North in Banaras Music Conference in 1936 became big news.
The process of the making of classical led to the creation of institutions to teach music and dance. The Euro-Greek centric idea of the classification of the ‘classical’ was about the perception of the idea of ‘clean’ and ‘steeped in purity’. The new order of performing arts institutions both under the state and private acquired sacred legitimacy by employing the male gurus as authentic repositories of classical performing arts as against the traditional women artists.
Unconventional sources
The study of the courtesans in over 10 North Indian cities revealed that their history was not limited to sources of oral history but unconventional primary sources such as diaries, letters among others. Their patrons were power elites in cities and rich landowners in rural areas associated with courts, trade, priests and professionals. Their performance spaces were their parlours in urban bazaars, courts, temples, and homes of elites.
Equipped in performing arts, languages, literature, and etiquette they became gurus of lifestyles to sons of elites and brand ambassadors for poets since they popularised their poetry through performances. They were perceived as fashionistas by wearing and displaying a beautiful shawl or sari made by master craftsmen. “There was a time, Baltan Bai stepped out into the bazaars in Rampur wearing a spectacular shawl. I recall my uncle, her patron, requesting her to source another similar piece for his wife,” said Imtiaz Ali from a family of landowners.
A matriarchal community with complex class and caste structures, they were linked directly to feudal lifestyles and economies. The value of a girl child was higher than that of a male. Ramesh, a car mechanic and son of Savita Bai in Sitapur said, “I regretted that I was born a son, for when my sister was born, my aunts and grandmothers organized a three-day jalsa (celebration). Food, clothes were distributed and spectacular performances organized. My birth was mourned!”
A section of tawa’ifs who were artists performed for all but had intimate relations with only the person who won them in auctions and sustained their parlours. The intricacies of their household organisation were unravelled by records comprising among several documents household registers commissioned by the British who appointed Munshi Dholak Ram to conduct house to house surveys in several cities including Lucknow, Sitapur and Hardoi. The registers carried information such as for example the name – Mussamat; caste and religion – Kanchan, Shia, Occupation - singing and dancing; home having two men and six ladies.
While birth and death municipal registers revealed other castes such as Mirasins, Domnis, Gandharava, Ramjani, the most powerful class irrespective of castes were the Deredar tawa’ifs. An authentic primary source on their lineages and rituals on Hindu tawa’ifs were the pilgrim records (bahi khatas) in Gaya and Allahabad and written records with some Sufi masters.
Organised in panchayats, their elected leader was called Choudhraiyan. Dilbar, son of Mumtaz Choudhraiyan (the 1920s) in Delhi said that she had migrated to Delhi from the court of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh, Patiala, and that her one sister was Sardari Begum on whom a movie was made.” Land reforms in the post-independent era, along with anti Nautch- movement saw the destruction of the feudal socio-economic system and the tawa’if system which cannot be resurrected. Several who were young, beautiful, and talented edged their way into the world of films. While others married mostly their musicians, inversing the matriarchal structure to one that gradually became patriarchal.
The shifting meter of their socio-cultural identity raises pertinent pointers to two complex issues related to the arts themselves and to the gender politics of the traditional women artists in the public domain.
The likes of Begum Akhtar and Asghari Bai in the field of music, or others in the field of dance, even as successful radio and performing classical artists, struggled to be included as respectable classical artists and gurus.
Stigmatised as pollutants, neither the few who were alive nor were their musicians were willing to talk to those who ventured to document them. After days of persuasion tabla exponent Nawaz Ata Hussain Khan agreed to take me to meet the two mirasins - Firdausi and Ameeran. Their small house had curtains hanging made of torn jute sacks; a beautiful old woman fair, white-haired wearing a light pink salwar-kameez opened the door and greeted us with a regal salaam. Inside hung a yellow bulb on a thin wire under which sat yet another beautiful woman. Frugal hospitality accompanied the animated conversation through the night saw the recounting of olden days describing their life in the palace in the court of Nawab Hamid Ali and exchanging nuances on Kathak dance, life, music, and rare compositions.
At dawn, we went for a wash to the Ram Ganga river. Before biding me farewell, they presented a small box saying, ‘beti, yeh humari taraf se tofa le lo, (Daughter, take this small gift from us). On opening, I found a simple silver ring. As we parted ways, I saw those two pairs of beautiful tired eyes, refined mannerism, memories of those beautiful songs enacted in trembling voices. That interlude had an amaranthine quality which remains etched in my mind. Their pathos can be experienced by this description by a patron in Varanasi, “A photographer asked a woman in tattered clothes begging in the Chowk, ‘can you tell me the house of the famous artist Badi Moti Bai?’ The lady replied, ‘Is naa cheez ko Badi Moti kahate hain’ – This worn out body in front of you is called Badi Moti Bai’.” No! All is not glamour like the Bollywood imagining of Umrao Jaan. A piercing shriek of pain echoes the histories of these women lost in the air.