PAPER 4

Detail Study Of Kathak, Nautch Girls, Nritta, Nritya, Different Gharana-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists

Module 2 Nautch Girls And Brief Introduction Of Kathak Gharana-s

Nautch / नाच was a corruption of naach, meaning literally - to dance - by the British, who had problems pronouncing Indian words. Thus, Varanasi became Banaras, Trichinapally became Trichy, Vadodara became Baroda. Mumbai became Bombay. Mysuru became Mysore. Many such examples abound.

The decline of the Mughal Empire and the rise of European power saw the gradual decadence of Kathak. Most of the petty princes and warlords had little appreciation for the fine arts. So Kathak degenerated into voluptuous and sensuous styles. Although there was an attempt to retain the basic graces of Kathak, the tendency was increasingly towards lasciviousness and the performers became notorious as women of easy virtue. It was this debased form of Kathak that European adventurers called ‘nautch.’ This infamy touched even the temple dancers and certainly did much to disgrace girls from respectable families adopting professional dance as a career.1

The ‘dancing women’ in colonial literature are certainly never called Kathaks nor is their dance ever referred to by that name. Yet, one of Kathak dance’s most contentious issues has long been the question of its connection to the so-called ‘nautch.’ Its application by the Europeans to 1 all types of Indian dance performed by professional women resulted in a stigma that still clings to north Indian dance. Nautch girls and the nautch dance they performed were associated with prostitution and loose behaviour although one searches in vain for such descriptions in the letters and diaries. The observers occasionally seemed relieved and even disappointed that what they saw could not be called immoral.2

Since some dancers had fallen on bad days, due to lack of patronage in temples and by local zamindars, they took to world's oldest profession, i.e. prostitution. Thus, for the British and their followers amongst Indian ruling class, which generally emulated their masters, the word ‘dance’ was replaced with ‘nautch.’ Dancing girls were called nautch girls. There are many paintings depicting these scenes in popular culture of the time, as seen through what is called Company School (so called and named after British Raj, or rule, that originated in East India Company rule).

Nautch dance was a term prevalent in north and south India. While south had devadasis and rajadasis, north had kothas or brothels, where the Nabob (British gent or officer, fashioned after Nawab, the local ruler’s title) went for downtime or company and was often entertained through dance and music and other activities that followed.

Nautch girls, a prominent part of Indian life and culture during the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, danced for a variety of people that included women and children in addition to men of virtually all social classes, in their homes, in public places, on stage and in various other settings. They performed in Mughal courts, the palaces of nawabs, the mahals (castles) of rajas, the bungalows of officers of the British Raj, the homes of nobles, the havelis (mansions) of zamindars (landowners) and many other places. They were invited to perform at parties, 2 weddings, christenings, religious ceremonies, and many other social occasions. Nautch girls did not need an invitation to perform at religious festivals. They would show up to perform at the homes of their wealthier patrons who were obliged to pay them. While travelling, they would often hold impromptu dance performances on roads, streets and thoroughfares to entertain the masses, make some money and secure free room and board. Nautch girls served the entire spectrum of people in India, across all regions, social classes, castes and religions.3

Nautch girls performed as a part of small troupes known as a nautch party - ten to twelve people or small with just two people. The party always had one or two dancers and usually a singer too. Their husbands usually worked as musicians in the troupe. The nautch party musicians historically played four instruments – sarangi, tabla, manjeera and dholak. A fifth instrument – the harmonium – was introduced to nautch, primarily in Kashmir and Punjab, at the start of the 20th century. Well-known and famous nautch girls however continued to use the sarangi. An experienced maidservant, the mama, was always a part of the nautch party to take care of the female performers, arranging meals, and the safekeeping of the jewelry worn by the nautch girls. An unarmed guard, the muhafiz / मुहाफ़िज़, was an important member of the nautch party given the turbulent times and political upheavals of 19th and 20th century India. His job was to protect all members and possessions of the nautch party. Nautch parties that performed during the night also had one or two 4 mashaljis / मशालजी, or lamp bearers, in the troupe.

The dances performed by the nautch girls were simple. They did not follow any one classical style but borrowed liberally from three dance traditions – Kathak, Dasi Attam and folk. The Kathak of early nineteenth 3 century was simple and aesthetically pleasing. The repertoire of toras and tukras was limited, and primary focus was on storytelling. Kathak had not yet been transformed into an elaborate school of dance by Bindadin Maharaj and Kalka Prasad. Dasi Attam, the early form of Bharatanatyam, was more complex but lent itself easily to use in the popular dance of nautch girls. Folk dances added a charming and local flavor to the nautch. It was up to the nautch girls to masterfully incorporate elements of all three styles of dance into their performances. The mor ka nach (dance of the peacock), patang nach (the kite dance) and the qahar ka nach (the bearer’s dance) were considered essential items in every nautch girl’s repertoire. 5

The songs of nautch girls had as their themes either the amorous escapades in the lives of gods or conventional romantic tales, usually about the lover’s yearning for the beloved. Until the end of the 19th century, songs in Persian were as popular as those in Hindi. There are even references comparing the singing style and the rendering of this ghazal by different reputed nautch girls of the day.6

Nautch girls were photographed extensively in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cameras were getting popular and the beautiful Nautch girls were an ideal subject for photographers wishing to document Indian culture. The third factor was a nautch girl’s need to have good photographs that she could send to prospective clients. 7

The nautch girl held the white sahib spellbound for nearly two centuries. Professional nautch girls and their performances have been described in numerous journals, travelogues, memoirs and diaries left by European visitors, missionaries, and civil and military officials. The post-Plassey British nabobs who had made quick fortunes emulated the ostentatious 4 lifestyle of native princes and even maintained their own troupes of nautch girls and musicians for the entertainment of their guests. A dinner in the community was usually followed by a nautch performance. So were other festive occasions, such as the celebration of a King Emperor’s birthday and visits of dignitaries to civil and military stations. Nautch girls would also accompany the British army whenever it was on the move, entertaining the soldiers on the way. The quality of the nautch and the class of nautch girls varied from place to place as did the reactions of the British spectators. In an early 19th century account, Captain Mundy describes a splendid nautch party held in honour of the Commander-in- Chief by the company’s political agent, Captain Wade in Ludhiana where 46 nautch girls entertained the guests, only to be surpassed by the British Resident at Delhi who honoured the Commander-in-Chief with a performance by 100 nautch girls. The nautch became a common form of entertainment in the mansions of the English merchants turned rulers in Bengal and other parts of India.8

The nautch girls were extensively patronised by the feudal rulers, many of whom retained whole sets of them in their service or as inmates of their sizeable harems. It is this picture of Indian dance and dancers that the European and other travellers who visited India during the period carried with them when they returned to their countries. Practically all that they could see by way of dance was the debased Kathak. So it is not surprising that they identified the art of Indian dance in its entirety with the nautch and branded it as a pursuit fit only for the vulgar and depraved – an impression that persisted till the present revival of the art. The purity of the Kathak dance was preserved by the men dancers and the Kathak we see today is largely what has come to us through them.9

The popularity of the nautch was at its peak in the 1860s; a natural 5 consequence of the popularity was the emergence of detractors of the art form. Waves of Christian missionaries started arriving in India after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and frequently opposed the performance of nautch, among many other things, by terming it anti- Christian, immoral and repugnant. Officers of the British Raj, who had heretofore been patrons of nautch girls, were asked to not attend nautch performances.10

As the 19th century wore on, the new group of English-educated Indians were swayed by the writings of some foreign observers who made no distinction between an accomplished professional nautch girl or a devadasi and a common prostitute, dubbing both as fallen women. In their drive against nautch, the missionaries were also joined by a powerful group of educated Indian social reformers who, influenced by western ideas and Victorian moral values, had lost pride in their own cultural heritage.11

In 1925, when Americans Ted Shawn and Ruth St Denis came to India, they wanted to see some nautch dancers, but Ted Shawn later wrote to scholar Mohan Khokar, "During British rule of India, dancing was frowned upon, due to mistaken norms of prudery and all the Indians we met were embarrassed when we mentioned the word ‘nautch’ to them." The Shawns were fortunate to meet star performers of the day, Bachwa Jaan / बचवा जान and Malikka Jaan / मलल啍का जान, both professing Kathak but of the Kotha (brothel) variety and Ruth was inspired to choreograph her ‘Nautch dance.’

Though it acquired pejorative associations in the early 20th century, the tradition of nautch survived the onslaught of the moral brigade and went 6 on to thrive in the Indian subcontinent. 12 Many famous courtesans gained notoriety too and were seen as parallel power centres. Here, in such social meeting places, the Indian and western masters merged and did deals in politics and power equations. Some nautch dancers also became legends.

All these dancers had one or more guru, who actually taught them the art of Kathak. While some remained faceless and nameless because of association with brothels, others emerged from that and struck out professionally on their own. Many such gurus from Ambala to Delhi, from Jaipur to Lucknow were also in royal or feudal patronage.

Although nautch became established social norm, the gurus who survived this period later went on to teach many popular names in dance. If one sees genealogy of gurus, many such teachers came to cities and taught girls from respectable families in Calcutta, the first capital of British India, then Delhi.

Soon proper and professional dance teaching schools and institutions came up and the art of nautch was slowly left as memory in films (Anarkali, Pakeezah) and what was a whole sub-culture became a lost culture. Mehfils and baithaks, where poetic compositions were rendered to accompaniment of tabla and sarangi were lost. Today when we think of Kathak, we think of gharanas/schools named after cities from where the art flourished and we think of great gurus of different styles like that of Lucknow, Jaipur, Banaras and Khairagarh gharanas.

The Lucknow Gharana flowered in the time of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Lucknow/Awadh, himself a great dancer. The great masters Kalka Prasad and Bindadin Maharaj (who codified the dance style) trace their ancestry 7 to one Ishwari Prasad in whose line Prakashji and Durga Prasad rose as great dancers. For six generations, this family produced three sons or brothers who took the dance form forward! At the outset, there was Aragu, Kharagu and Tularam; then came Prakash, Dayal and Hira Lal; then Durga Prasad, Thakur Prasad and Man Singh; then Bindadin, Kalka Prasad and Bhairon Prasad; then Achchan, Lachchu and Shambhu Maharaj; and then, Shambu’s three sons Shiv, Ram Mohan and Krishna Mohan. 13

Durga Prasad’s son was Bindadin Maharaj who had no issue. Kalka Prasad had three sons, Achchan Maharaj, Shambhu Maharaj and Lachchu Maharaj, who were excellent dancers as well as gurus of the Lucknow gharana, who left behind a galaxy of finely trained Kathak dancers. Achchan Maharaj trained his younger brothers. His first students when he started working in Delhi were Uma and Nirmala Joshi, Malashri Sen, Reba Vidyarthi and Kapila Vatsyayan. Mohanrao Kallianpurkar, Damayanti Joshi, Vikram Singh from Ceylon also trained under him. Lachchu Maharaj opened a school in Bombay and trained his daughter Kausalya, Rohini Bhate and Sitara Devi. During his teaching stint at Kathak Kendra at Lucknow he trained young dancers Kumkum Dhar, Malavika Sarkar and Kapila Sharma. Shambhu Maharaj devised the courtly style of sitting and performing which made it less hurried, more elegant for bhava batana (depiction). He taught at Delhi’s Bharatiya Kala Kendra. His disciples were Maya Rao, Bela Arnab, Rina Singha and Kumudini Lakhia. Uma Sharma, Damayanti Joshi, Rani Karnaa, Vaswati Mishra, Kapila Raj, Veronique Azan and many others are popular torchbearers of the Lucknow gharana. Shambhu Maharaj and Birju Maharaj taught for many years at Bharatiya Kala Kendra (later became Kathak Kendra) in Delhi. Achchan Maharaj’s son Birju Maharaj has shaped the present day Kathak into an exquisite form.

The Jaipur Gharana dancers and gurus, Jailal, Sundar Prasad and Narayan 8

Prasad, Kundanlal Gangani and Sundarlal Gangani, and Durga Lal (for his speed and easy style of performance) were instrumental in developing this gharana. Gauharjaan / गौहर जान, Kamarjaan / कमार जान, Dhannibai / धन्ननबाई and Maina / मैना were some famous dancers of this gharana during the reign of Sawai Madho Singh II (1861-1922). Jailal’s disciples were the Pooviah sisters. Some outstanding exponents and gurus of this style include Hari Prasad and Hanuman Prasad (sons of Dulaji), Hanuman’s three sons, Mohanlal, Chiranjilal and Narayan Prasad, brothers Durga Prasad, Chunnilal and Shyamlal, and Govardhan (son of Biharilal). Chunnilal’s sons, Jailal and Sundar Prasad, became household names. Others are Ram Gopal and Jai Kumari (son and daughter of Jailal), Devilal and his son Gaurishankar, Sohanlal, Hiralal and his son Ganesh, Sunaina and Hazarilal, Roshan Kumari, Alka Nupur, etc. Rohini Bhate enriched Kathak’s rhythmic repertoire by creating a large corpus of dance compositions. Among present day stars are Rajendra Gangani (son of Kundanlal Gangani), Geetanjali Lal (wife of dancer Devi Lal), her son, Abhimanyu Lal and his wife, Vidha Lal.

The Banaras Gharana originated in Rajasthan but flourished in Benaras. It was developed by scholar/dancer Janaki Prasad whose chief disciple was his elder brother Chunnilal. Chunnilal’s son Sablaji, Sablaji’s son Dudaji and his two sons, Hukmaji and Motilal, all trained under Janaki Prasad. Hukmaji’s sons, Ganeshilal and Dularam, trained under their uncle Motilal. Dularam trained his sons Biharilal, Puranlal and Hiralal who gave several performances in north India, and also taught many dancers in Bihar. Among Biharilal’s gifted disciples were Keshav Rao of Bombay, Hiralal of Jaipur gharana, Sukhdev of Jaipur, Mohanlal Benaraswale and Menakabai Belgaonkar. Biharilal’s sons Kishanlal, Sohanlal and Mohanlal carried forward their father’s legacy. Kishanlal taught with his father in 9

Bombay, Mohanlal and Sohanlal taught Kathak in Dehradun. Hiralal, court dancer at Bikaner and Indore, was famous for his collection of thumris. Puranlal’s sons Ramlal and Madanlal settled in Patiala. Madanlal danced his uncle Hiralal’s thumris.

Ganeshilal had three sons, Hanuman Prasad, Shivlal and Gopal. Famous for his abhinaya, Hanuman Prasad was court dancer in Jammu, Patiala and Nepal before going to Delhi to teach. His disciples include Nirmala Joshi and her sister Uma. Hanuman Prasad’s daughter had three sons, Naval Kishore, Bansidhar and Omkar Prasad settled in Delhi. Shivlal was a poet but of his three sons, Sukhdev and Durga Prasad went to Rajasthan, and Kundanlal taught Kathak at Hanumangarh. Gopal was court dancer at Khairagarh, Kapurthala and Kashmir. He made Kathak popular throughout Punjab before the partition. His famous disciples include Hirabai of Patiala durbar, Nawab Putlibai and film star, Ashiq Hussain Khan. A large number of disciples learnt Kathak from Ashiq Hussain - his brother Sadiq Khan, son Akbar, Tara Chaudhri, Kumudini Lakhia, Gopal’s son Krishna Kumar (had a Kathak school in Bareilly and later moved to Delhi), Hazarilal, Shehzadi and Hazoori. Hazarilal taught in Bombay, married his disciple Sunaina and together they started a school Natwari to propagate the Janaki Prasad school of Kathak. Sudarshan Dheer, Ranjitkar and Dayashankar are Hazarilal’s disciples.

Dancer, Sanskrit scholar and guru Pt. Sukhdev Maharaj sired three daughters Tara, Sitara and Alaknanda, a popular trio, before individual fates took them to places as far as Benaras, Bombay and Bengal. Sitara Devi also learnt from Achchan Maharaj. Although Sitara was born in Bengal, she lived most of her adult life in Bombay, with a brief stay in Benaras. Her sister Tara was the mother of Gopi Krishna, another famous film dance personality. 10

The Raigarh Gharana was established by King Chakradhar Singh in the princely state of Raigarh (Chhattisgarh) in the early 20th century. During the reign of Raja Bhupdeo Singh, Chunnilal, Shivnarain and Jhande Khan taught Kathak at the durbar. Anujram and Kartikram were prominent dancers during the reign of Natwar Singh, brother of Chakradhar Singh (son of Bhupdeo Singh), who invited many Kathak maestros and percussionists to his court, including Kalka Prasad and his sons of Lucknow gharana, Pandit Jailal from Jaipur gharana, Sukhdev Prasad, etc. The confluence of different styles and artistes led to the development of new Kathak and tabla compositions drawn from these influences. Some of renowned dancers of this gharana are Kartikram and his son Ramlal, Phirturam Maharaj, Kalyan Mahant, Barmanlal, Yasmin Singh, V. Anuradha Singh, Alpana Vajpeyi, Suchitra Harmalkar, Monica Pandey Bohre, Mohini Moghe, Bhagwandas Manik, Bhupendra Bareth, Vasanti Vaishnav, Annapurna Sharma, Vijaya Sharma, Jyoti Bakshi, Chetana Jyotishi, etc.

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