Tawåyaf
The most potent visual image conjured up by this word is undoubtedly the tragic character played by the actress Meena Kumari in the 1972 film Pakeezah. Passionate and suffering, the courtesan Sahibjaan at last finds happiness outside of the world of the nautch when she can marry the man she loves.
The great literary courtesan Umrao Jan Ada (in the 1905 book by Mirza Ruswa) bemoans her fate which caused her to be kidnapped from her middle-class home at the age of twelve, and sold into the sex-trade. Although the 1981 film Umrao Jaan takes some liberties with Ruswa’s novel and adds further dramatic complications, neither the literary Umrao Jan nor the screen Umrao Jaan (played by the actress Rekha) find the happiness and societal acceptance they crave.
Happy ending or not (and the success of the film Pakeezah was greatly enhanced if not solely established by the tragic ending of Meena Kumari’s life from alcoholism just a few weeks after the film was released), the image of the courtesan tends to be steeped in a mixture of decadence and debauchery. Home of the courtesan, Lucknow’s legendary etiquette and culture were mixed with its ambivalent attitude towards music and dance. The tawayaf is a woman who escapes the restricting four-walls of the life of the wife and mother and who has access to education and travel, yet is doomed to live outside of the boundaries of respectability and bourgeois acceptance. In the 2002 remake of the film Devdas, courtesan Madhuri Dixit touches the feet of her lover’s wife, played by Aishwarya Rai, saying she will always look up to the woman who is her moral superior.
Commonly used as a synonym for prostitute in modern usage, this Persian term in fact denotes a particular class of courtesan when used in Hindi/Urdu. In Persian the word tawåyaf, which is technically a plural, means ‘tribes’ or ‘communities’ throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and does not describe courtesans. In Persian sources courtesans are instead referred to by their community names such as kanchan^. i
The word in its singular use of ‘dancing girl’ probably first appears in Hindi/Urdu sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. At that time, and into the early part of the twentieth century, tawåyafs in North India were considered high-class courtesans, unlike their more common counterparts who worked in the båzårs. Tawåyafs were highly-skilled singers and dancers, who were also trained in the arts of poetry and conversation. They were so refined that aristocrats would send their sons to be trained in sophistication, manners and etiquette. There is no doubt that even in the era when courtesan arts were at the pinnacle of appreciation, most if not all tawåyafs were sex workers of some kind. It is likely that many had dedicated patrons, to whom they would ‘belong’.
Prior to, and in the early days of, colonial rule tawåyafs were primarily connected to and employed by the courts of North India. As the power and wealth of the princely rulers decreased, tawåyafs increasingly began to entertain in their own private salons and brothels. They were often hugely wealthy women who, by virtue of their non-married status, were able to move around freely.
Tawåyafs lived in a matriarchal system of sorts, in which girls born to the women would generally become performers themselves, and boys would be trained as either musical accompanists or, if musical talent was lacking, be kept around as guards. Tawåyaf performance was accompanied by tabla (drum) and sarangi (bowed lute). Sarangi players were often also teachers of tawåyafs. The close connection between the musical and brothel life of these musicians can be seen in the fact that the word bharu’å (now obsolete) meant ‘musical accompanist’ as well as ‘pimp’.
In pre-modern India virtually all female singers and dancers were tawåyafs as there was no platform for married women to be seen, let alone perform, in public. In the early decades of the twentieth century the concerted efforts of reformers such as Vishnu Narayan Bhatkhande and Vishnu Digambar Paluskar led to the acceptance of the performing arts among the middle classes. Tawåyafs bore the brunt of this new bourgeois identity, as they would find themselves either excluded from performance and recording opportunities, or welcomed only on the condition they take on a new identity. The suffix Bai, which was commonly used for tawåyafs, was substituted with Devi, ‘goddess’, as part of this process of re-invention. The ‘bourgeoisisation’ of their art meant they lost their status as well as their income. Some ended up in prostitution; others were able to make a name for themselves in the burgeoning film industry. In the early days of ‘talkies’ many tawåyafs were employed as singer-actresses.
In the early days of the All India Radio station most performers were recruited from the courtesan class, as the great male vocalists were not prepared to have their music broadcast to an anonymous audience, and amateurs did not perform in public. The ensuing reputation of the radio station as employer of tawåyafs did nothing to improve its position with either professional or amateur musicians. Consequently Sardar Patel, the then Minister for Broadcasting, introduced a ban on performers ‘whose private life is a public scandal’ after Independence.ii The problem posed by tawåyafs performing in situations where their livelihood was considered shameful also arose in the recording industry. As with early radio broadcasts, gramophone recordings, which began in India in 1902, had to draw their artists from the courtesan class; courtesan artists such as Gauhar Jan and Janki Bai, whose early recordings are nowadays available on compact disc, insisted that the word ‘amateur’ was included on the record label for the sake of their reputation. In this way the women themselves colluded in keeping their professional identities under cover, increasing the marginalisation of those unable or unwilling to do so.
Tawåyafs sang a wide variety of genres, depending on their musical training. Certain song forms, such as the classical vocal genre khyal, were performed by male singers as well as tawåyafs, and have not in any way become tainted by their association with the courtesan tradition. The texts of khyal depict a wide variety of scenes and narrative settings, and are thus rarely linked directly to courtesan life. Nevertheless, the almost obligatory presence of the first-person female voice in the lyrics suggests that women rather than men were the main performers of the genre.
Other genres such as ©azal were primarily performed by tawåyafs but have nevertheless been able to rise above this connection. (There are many reasons for this, one of which is no doubt that ©azal is a highly-respected Urdu poetic form in its own right and has thus always had a separate identity.) The one genre that is inextricably linked with tawåyaf performance is thumri. It remains a popular genre even today, but its erotically-charged lyrics have either been altered or re- interpreted into a devotional framework. Thumri texts almost invariably express female desire, usually in the motif of love-in-separation (viraha). The lovelorn heroine of thumri either curses the day her lover left her to take up with her co- wife or rival, or pleads with him not to abandon her. She may also be bemoaning the fate which has contrived to leave her alone in the sensuous days of the rainy season. Whatever the setting may be, the female speaker of thumri texts expresses her mood solely through the actions of her mate. In this way thumri is ideally suited to tawåyaf performance, where the courtesan can act out the anguish and desire experienced by her textual alter ego.
The dance form that tawåyafs practised has become known as kathak in the twentieth century. Like the dance form bharat natyam in South India, kathak has climbed its way up the social ladder and is now considered an essential part of a middle-class girl’s education. Woe is hers, however, should she wish to pursue a career as a dancer. In that scenario all the old prejudices vis-a-vis performing artists emerge. In the ever-increasing reluctance middle-class singers display regards performing thumri, and the highly ambivalent attitudes that prevail towards women dancing in public, we can see that the tawåyaf stigma has yet to lose its significance.
The relationship between the middle-classes and hereditary musicians is a complex one. Although it would be a gross over-simplification to divide these two groups along religious lines, most hereditary musicians remaining in North India come from Muslim backgrounds. (The one major exception is Benares, where Muslims have been almost entirely excluded from the musical life. In modern-day Varanasi, Hindu musicians usually claim Brahmin status. In this way, a tradition that is entirely predicated upon courtesan arts has re-invented itself, claiming a ‘respectable’ identity.) Although in the modern era many middle-class Hindu musicians are the children of parents and even grandparents who were themselves musicians, this does not compare to belonging to a lineage that has been involved with the ‘music industry’ for centuries. The problem with the older lineages is that prior to c. 1900, music and courtesan life were closely intertwined. This is what makes the persona of the tawåyaf so problematic.
When India moved into modernity, re-creating and re-establishing its musical traditions as part of the great national identity became a major cause. Part of the thrust to bring India’s cultural heritage to the fore was to counter-act colonial claims that India’s arts were uncouth and primitive. A heritage of music and dance predicated upon courtesan culture was clearly not going to meet the nationalist requirements. Campaigns banning dancing-girls, making India’s musical heritage respectable once again, were very powerful. The most simplistic argument was that ancient Hindu arts had been free from such debauched influences, which had entered India with the Muslims. If the arts could be freed from vice, music and dance could once again be restored to their ‘former’ glory. This image of vice became embodied in the tawåyaf.iii
The word tawåyaf itself has become synonymous with whore. Although to this day technically a tawåyaf is a high-class prostitute, it is often used as an insult for any sex worker, and sometimes, for any woman earning a living in the music business. The sense that a tawåyaf is someone who has achieved a high level of cultural accomplishment is all but lost today. The term tawåyaf can be used as a euphemism when other, more direct, words connoting prostitute would be considered impolite.
However, there is no doubt that the classical vocal genres of North India owe a huge debt to tawåyafs and their accompanists. i With thanks to Katherine Butler Brown for information on Persian sources. ii This story is recounted in Neuman, Daniel M., 1980: The Life of Music in North India : The Organization of an Artistic Tradition (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press), p.172. iii Christopher King has demonstrated that a similar dichotomisation was employed in distinguishing Hindi from Urdu. King, Christopher, 1994: One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India (Bombay: Oxford University Press).