WIVES, TAWAIFS AND NAYIKAS: TRANSCENDING THE BOUNDARIES OF IDENTITY

VIDYA RAO

In the debates on construction of identity one discerns primarily two broad approaches. First, identity is constructed by physical, social, cultural etc., factors. These, in a sense, are 'poured' into the individual or social group and an 'identity' is constructed. Second, this identity is not a fixed thing. This paper examines the notion of feminine identity as perceived and constructed from a third perspective: that of the blurring of such iden­ tity/identities. Ideological boundaries both divide and reinforce the divides between groups, and simultaneously re-affirm the oneness of the group defined by these boundaries. However, in the realm of fantasy, it is possible, indeed inevitable, that these boundaries are transgressed. This paper studies the identity, construction of two groups of women — Tawaifs (singers/dangers) and Parda Nashin (respectable) women, and will seek to understand how in the fantasies evoked in the music of the tawaifs such identities are blurred. To my mind, while patriarchal feudal society creates these separate identities and maintains them in order to maintain status quo, it also creates, in fantasy, possibilities for their transgression. Vidya Rao, a singer, studied thumri and ghazal with the late Smt. Naina Devi. She writes on music and the performing arts, and on women's issues and has conducted music workshops with school children, students of architecture and design, and theatre students and other groups. She has been researching on thumri and thumri singers, first with the help of a Ford Foundation grant (1989-1993), and is now (1994-96) on a Senior Fellowship from the Department of Culture, Government of India.

Khusrau Nijaam ke bal baljaihe, Mohe suhagan kinhi mose naina milaike.

Khusrau, lovingly dedicated to Nijaam (says) ' 'Looking at me, meeting my eyes, you 've made me your eternal bride.'' 40 Vidya Rao Some of the issues I want to deal with in this paper surface in this doha or couplet ascribed to the thirteenth century musician, poet, philoso­ pher, courtier, inventor, Amir Khusrau. At the moment of speaking/writing/singing this, Khusrau's identity seems to be dispersed through many selves — Khusrau as murid or disciple of the Sufi saint Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya; Khusrau as '' soul'' and devotee of the unseeable, unknowable Soul; Khusrau as swakeeya, wife; Khusrau as parakeeya, abhisarika, Khusrau, as woman, as man, as a being beyond gender. And, Nijaam, who is addressed to passionately here, surely he comes to us as dispersed. And I, who take on Khusrau's voice, who sing's his song — what is my identity at the moment of singing? I am "myself", an ordinary middle-class woman, living and singing at the end of the twentieth century, re-discovering Khusrau's text, re-evoking his devotion, feeling and believing it myself, using his voice to express my truth. I am Khusrau at the shrine; I am that surging sea of people at the urs of Hazrat Nizamuddin, I am Khusrau writing; I am a woman in love; I am a woman addressing Khusrau addressing Nijaam; I am the eternal, radiant bride of the Pir; I am the archetychal image of feminine love and beauty. I am a woman, a man, a being beyond gender. I am more selves than I can count. My "self", and my body, the everyday container of this self, know no boundaries. And as I write I remember the lines of another song:

Bajubandh khul khuljaye Saavariya ne kaisajadu dara.

The bonds of my armband loosen and fall away! What magic is this my love has wrought?

I begin with these songs and the questions they raise because in this paper I want to explore the ways in which identity can be ambiguous and fluid and can transcend socially constructed boundaries like those of "ethnicity". I want to explore the ways whereby the fantasies evoked in music and through the performance of this music blur these boundaries allowing for irony, subversion, transgression, transcendence. This volume addresses the important question of ethnicity and identity. For all of us this is a question of utmost importance. For, "ethnicity", however constructed, is at the root of much of our sense of who we are. The tragedy is when notions of ethnicity are deliberately manipulated to engen­ der hatred, to polarise groups, ideas. The tragedy too is when ethnic identities Wives, Tawaifi and Nayikas 41 are snuffed out, smothered over with an untextured, "Indianness" which is violently colonial in its refusal to allow the specificities of cultures to breathe and grow. By questioning the boundaries of identity, by speaking of an identity that shifts, that is dispersed, fluid, and that transcends "ethnicity", and even ' 'identity'' itself, I want to clarify that I do not wish to essentialise the self. Our selves are rooted in the specificities of our family histories, cultures, historical moments. Yet, it seems to me also that we yearn for a sense of ourselves as free, wide-ranging. We yearn for a sense of self that knows the other as 'other', but also as a reflection of one's 'self. Dostoe- ovsky once said that it is through beauty that the world might be saved. Indeed, it seems to me that the beauty we create and experience in art — a beauty which no doubt is contextual, but which is yet so timeless, still, inner — this beauty might help us understand and resolve our shrill hatreds, angers, and confusions. At heart then, this paper seeks to question the notion of "identity" as a "thing" that one is possessed of/possesses one unambi­ guously, that defines one forever in a fixed and definite fashion.

The Identity of Musicians The traditional professional musicians of north India are "self-defined and other recognised'' groups (Phadnis, 1989: 8). The organising principle is the gharana system. It is the gharana that confers identity, and also the legiti­ macy to receive knowledge, to practice it and to perpetuate it by transmitting it to future generations. Members of a gharana do not necessarily belong to the same family, caste, racial, religious or linguistic group — though often gharana membership is also contiguous with common membership of other such groups. But members of a gharana do share very definitely "a subjective belief in real or assumed historical antecedants", "a sym­ bolic..geographical centre", "self-ascribed awareness of distinctiveness" which is also "recognised by others" (Phadnis, 1989: 8). While gharana can often be taken to mean "family" or "lineage", in the world of music it refers to the ' 'family'' of musicians that comes into being through the common possessing of, and the right to use and transmit a corpus of musical materials. Gharana refers thus, to both the family of musicians related by ties of kinship who possess, practice, and transmit a recognisable and identifiable musical corpus, and also to the group of musicians who, by virtue of sharing this musical corpus, are considered to be of the same gharana. It is the fact of belonging to the family, the kin group that gives a singer access to and the right to legitimately claim these musical materials, but equally, the fact of having received these materials confers gharana status on the singer, who may not belong to the kin group. Thus, 42 Vidya Rao though "gharana" and "family" are not coterminous, gharana uses the metaphor of family to describe itself. In that sense then it is a kind of family, and many singers stress that the ties wrought by gharana allegiance are more binding than those of blood and physical birth. To be accepted into a gharana via the gandabandhan ceremony is to be twice-born. This second birthing into the ' 'family'' of the guru is considered superior to that of the gross birth of the material body. As a member of a gharana, a singer is legitimately placed in the tradition's shijra or genealogical tree and in the process, his (Rao, 1994)2 relationship with his ustad/guru is contextualised, deepened and historicised. Member­ ship of the gharana gives him the right to inherit the patrimony of its arcane knowledge — its special bandishes (musical compositions), its particular techniques of voice production, treatment of raga and tola, techniques of swara patterning etc. and, at a more subtle level, its world view regarding performance, and the purpose and meaning of music. It gives him the right to claim, display/use and transmit this knowledge. The gharana bestows status and legitimacy on him. In turn, he is responsible for preserving its status through excellence in performance, and for ensuring its continuity by teaching other worthy students. Increasingly — at least from the middle of the nineteenth century — gharana membership appears to cut across linguistic, regional, religious affiliations. While "khas-ul-khas" (creme de la creme) status is reserved for the sons of the patrilineage (the gharana's core therefore appears to be defined and constructed along kinship lines) membership at different levels is open to others — men of collateral and affinal streams, and also to gandhabandha shagirds who may have no kinship tie to the ustad, but are accepted into the gharana through the receiving of "ilm"3 (knowledge). This has probably always been the case. Gharanas appear to have risen to prominence about 200-250 years ago, and musical lore is full of stories about "outsiders" learning legitimately or secretly from the founder ustad. Such stories include those about the brothers Haddu and Hassu Khan, founders of the Gwalior gharana, the first gharana. Much more can be said about the identity that derives from gharana status and how gharana both is and is not a statement of shared ethnicity and identity. That, however, is not the focus of this paper. Here I want to look at the identities that emerge through and around the music, especially vis-a-vis women. To do this, I shall first look at the placement of women in the world of music and of the gharana system. I shall then try and understand how their identities are shaped and constructed by this discourse. Finally I shall consider how the music, as performed by one group of women, the tawaifs, Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 43 breaks down these identities and subverts the stereotypical images of women. I must clarify that such transgressions did not radicalise women's status, nor was that the intention. Rather, musical performance provided a space and an opportunity whereby it became possible to question, mock and subvert existing position, roles and ideologies. Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas Imagine a room, fragrant with the smells of itr, incense and jasmine. From the ceiling hang beautiful chandeliers. Their light is reflected in the many large mirrors set into the walls in carved silver frames and falls in a soft glow on the white chandini chadar spread on the floor. A woman enters this room — poised, self-assured, confident, and if not actually beautiful, then cer­ tainly possessed of great charm of manner and of an attraction that is referred to as namakdar (full of salt). She wears a long, full-skirted peshwaz and a churidar pyjama, though in an earlier time, before the fall of Avadh, she would have worn loose pyjamas. Wound round her ankles are row upon row of bells. Tying them on is a prayerful ritual of the utmost solemnity and respect. For these bells, ghunghroo, signify her — her person, her work, her art, her status. They are her pride, her source of sustenance, the symbol of her art, a symbol too of her "shame". Her head and bosom are carefully covered with a dupatta, out of modesty, and also out of respect for her audience. Through the translucent material you glimpse a long plait braided through with flowers and with gold and silver threads, hanging at the end in bejeweled tassels. A chhapka, a head ornament graces her forehead; her nose is adorned with a small stud-like "laung" diamond, symbolising her mature sexuality. She moves round the circle of the people — all of them men — seated in the room, greeting each with a graceful salaam. It is from this movement of hers, the encircling of the mehfil (the performance space) that she gets her name "tawaif'' — the word tawaif being derived from the Persian ' 'tawaif'' which means circumambulation of Kaaba. Standing now in the centre of the room, she begins her "mujra". This "mujra" is a performance that is part song, part dance, part dramatic presentation. She begins perhaps with a bandish (composition) in the sym­ metrical teentala (a time cycle of 16 matras or beats). Sung in madhya laya (medium tempo), the bandish is rhythmically very complex, allowing her to display her cleverness with layakari, and bol-baant (rhythmic play). Such compositions known as bandish ki thumri or bol-baant ki thumri are gifts to her from such composers as "Sanad Piya", "Lallan Piya" and "Kunwar 44 Vidya Rao Shyam''. This thumri is followed by dadras, tappas, and ghazals. She stands and sings, embellishing each phrase with gestures and with facial expres­ sions. Her accompanists, sarangi and tabla players, stand behind her, their instruments tied to their waists. They follow her as she moves about the mehfil, their instruments echoing her voice. Between different verses of each song, she lets the accompanies take over while she now dances — dazzling tatkars, parans and chakkars. She sings songs of love and longing. She addresses each man in the audience directly, as if it is for him that she sings. She is, you realise, the only woman in this room. In another room, in another house, another woman stands waiting. She does not witness the mujra, nor is she exposed to the gaze of the men at the mehfil. Unlike the tawaif she never appears before men, never speaks of love and other such unspeakable matters, nor does she sing, except among other women of her household at some life cycle ceremonies. Absent from the mehfil, she is nevertheless very much present in it. She is the wife. In North Indian society at the turn of the century, wives and tawaifs were two utterly different species, worlds apart. Yet each in her own way contrib­ uted to the maintenance of a patriarchal feudal society. If wives were dutiful, ran the household and produced legitimate sons, tawaifs fulfilled aesthetic and erotic needs. The tawaif, the "other woman" of this drama was thus equally a preserver of status quo "an adjunct to conservative domestic society, not its ravager" (Srinivas, 1988: 182). Elite men maintained wives at home and tawaifs in the kotha. Marriage with a woman from a family of substance, and relations with a beautiful and talented tawaif both contributed to his own status. It was in society's interest to ensure that these two women never met, that each stayed in the place allotted to her by custom and tradition and that each fulfilled herself by following her given role. Wives were not and could never be tawaifs, nor could tawaifs be wives. Yet, equally, along with this interdiction, it seems to me that in fantasy they appear to merge, taking on each other's characteristics, till it becomes impossible to tell who this third fantasy-born woman really is. There appears then to be a third woman at the mehfil. Invisible, intangible, yet she is experienced by all those present: Her presence is essential to the success of the mujra. She is the nayika of thumri, the woman sung into being by the tawaif, and who embodies the collective fantasies of this culture. The nayika is that woman who is maddeningly ambiguous, at once both wife and tawaif, and then again, neither. I believe it is in evoking the nayika through music that the "givens" of identity the clearly defined boundaries that separate wives and tawaifs, may Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 45 be transgressed and transcended. Identity ceases then to be fixed, becoming instead, eternally open, full of unending possibilities. In the fantasy of thumri, the nayika points playfully to the possibility — both terrifying and fascinating — that wives and tawaifs may and do become each other, that the world may not, after all, be such a certain, well-ordered place, and that finally, we may all be just human beings under the skin. The Good Wife In the world of music, there are two distinct kinds of women — wives who are respectable, but who "do not sing", and tawaifs who are not quite respectable, who sing, but do not marry. While such a categorisation is not quite as sharp as the western virgin/whore split, nevertheless it still appears as if women in North Indian music culture cannot be both respectable and articulate. The choice is between respectability and silence, or the permis­ sion to be articulate and a corresponding non-respectability. While the tawaif, the singing woman, was not the despised creature that she is today, her position was somewhat ambiguous. She was respected, admired, sought after, powerful, yet not quite respectable. Even in Buddhist times, while the ganikas and nagarvadhus occupied an accepted and acknowledged place in society (they were not marginalised) the ideal of womanhood was, as it is today, the gahapatni, the housewife (Chakravarti, 1984). Who is this good wife? How is this notion constructed? How does she perceive herself? The notion of the ' 'good wife'' as we read or hear of it draws from such diverse places as legend and myth, prescriptive texts, and practical mundane matters like the safeguarding of family inheritance. Certainly it is not static and keeps changing, but it seems that some sense of it endures. I shall describe some of these ideas briefly, and also draw upon my own discussions with wives of patrons and of performing gharanedar musicians. Analysing the eighteenth century prescriptive text Stridharmapaddhati which lays down the appropriate behaviour for the good wife,4 Julia Leslie (1989: 31-33) shows how the text makes a distinction between stribhava which is the innate evil nature of women and the taming of this nature through Stridharma to render women pure and chaste wives, perfect subjects of patriarchy (Das, 1980; Shulman, 1980:138-316; Wadley, 1988: 23-43). Fruzzetti (1990) points out that the gift of kanyadaan is one of the greater acts of piety, conferring great spiritual merit on the father of the bride. By gifting a virgin daughter to an appropriate family, a man confers upon his affines the blessing of perpetuity. His affines may now generate, their family will now continue, triumphing over the death of individual members. 46 Vidya Rao Equally, the bride as auspicious wife feeds and sets at rest the hungry ancestors at the boubhat and shraddha ceremonies. The good wife is thus, the fertile means of generative continuity. She is also the nurturing mother who feeds both the children and the ancestors of her conjugal family. She has no such similar role in her natal family. Marriage links together — as innumerable anthropological studies have shown — two families, two groups, by the affinal tie. This tie often echoes and reinforces economic, political and ritual relationships between the two groups. Through kanyadaan, the bride's natal family gifts away a daughter; the affinal family gains a wife, mother, and a nurturer of progeny and ancestors. Primarily then the good wife is one who nurtures her conjugal family and perpetuates it by her fertility, by bearing legitimate sons. Speaking of the iconography of Shiva as Ardhanarishwara, Leslie (1989: 31) says ' 'The image also reinforces the ideal oneness of the married couple; husband and wife as complementary halves of one whole This much extolled one-ness, does not however...(mean the) merging of two individuals but the self-effacement of one of them.'' We have before us of course several legendary examples — Gandhari being one, ' 'who binds her eyes so as not to excel the blind Dhritarashtra in any way." Leslie further points out how prescriptive texts on the role of the good wife make it abundantly clear that "the ideal wife is one whose duties, purpose and identity derive entirely from her husband''. The good wife is the pativrata who believes that' 'there is no deity like...one's husband Draupadi says, advising Satyabhama on the duties of a good wife: ' 'Keeping aside vanity, and controlling desire and wrath, I always serve with devotion the sons of Pandu with their wives...none else my heart liketh. I never bathe or eat or sleep till he that is my husband hath bathed or eaten or slept...when my husband leaveth home...then renouncing flowers and fra­ grant paste of every kind, I begin to undergo penances. Whatever my husband enjoyeth not I even renounce Those duties that my mother-in- law hath told me in respect of relatives, as also the duties of alms giving, of offering worship to the gods...and service to those that deserve our regards, and all else that is known to me, I always discharge day and night without idleness of any kind" (Kakar, 1981: 67-68). And Meyer (1971: 340) also quotes the Mahabharata where Shakuntala says: "She is a wife who is skillful in the house; she is a wife who has children; she is a wife who keeps a holy truth with her husband. The wife is the half of a man Even when the husband...dies...the faithful mate follows ever after him '' Sita is the ego-ideal of the good woman/wife — an ideal of ' 'chastity, Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 47 purity, gentle tenderness and a singular faithfulness which cannot be de­ stroyed or even disturbed by her husband's rejections, slights or thought­ lessness (Chakravarti,5 1983; Kakar, 1981: 66). The good wife is also Fatima, the wife of Hazrat Ali, and mother of Hassan and Hussain. Innumerable stories are approvingly told of her good­ ness, and her self-effacing qualities. One story, a favourite of the Begum of Awadh (Wajid Ali Shah's mother) tells how Fatima who had begun to be somewhat argumentative, observed, appreciated and learnt from a poor woman, the correct values of implicit obedience to her husband, of antici­ pating and readily acceding to his every possible demand. Such demands included the wish to use violence against her should she inadvertently displease him in any way (Knighton, 1921). In similar vein is Bihishti Zevar, written in the early 1900s by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi. The Maulana, a Deobandi ulama, wrote this in response to the changes experienced by his community as a result of the efforts of, on the one hand, the missionaries, and on the other the westernised Muslims. Bihishti Zevar, or the ornaments of paradise (the ornaments being rightful living), significantly, represents "a new concern for bringing mainstream Islamic teachings to women — a departure from the traditional view in which women typically were not expected to have more than a minimal acquaintance with these teachings" (p. 1). But simultaneously Thanawi's conversational style of writing, and his use of simple, non-literary Urdu (though not the women's variant of Begamati zaban) made this immediately accessible to ordinary women and girls. Indeed, Bihishti Zevar became an essential item of a bride's dowry. In discussing its contents, Metcalfe says ' 'Thanawi argues that ingrati­ tude toward a husband is as much a sin as ingratitude toward God. A woman is to follow her husband's will and whims in all things, to seek his permission on all issues, to call the day night if he does. A woman is expected to be responsible for her husband's happiness and to respond to his mood Never think of him as your equal" says Thanawi who also claims that a woman's power lies in her submission (see p. 23). While Thanawi is in favour of educating women, this education serves to enhance her domestic role (p. 26). At the same time that he sees women as properly submissive, Thanawi believes that men and women are equal, have equal intelligence, and are equally capable of good or bad conduct; yet, cultural factors contribute to women's being troubled by "nafs" (or the undisciplined impulses of the lower soul) in the struggle that occurs in every human life between "nafs" and "aql" (intelligence, good sense) (p. 8). 48 Vidya Rao Bihishti Zevar has advice for women on all aspects of their lives — their behaviour, their dress, how to plan and manage their households, letter-writ­ ing etc. It also contains a section on stories about exemplary women. Thus it advises women to measure out rice and flour daily (p. 184) (clearly implying a careful budgeting of household resources) and also, never to wear revealing clothes (p. 185), to avoid fancy clothes, not to be overly preoccu­ pied with applying oil to and combing one's hair (p. 186). "Do not," Thanawi says, "strut proudly, all decked out" (p. 186). He advises women to avoid leaving the house but if going out becomes unavoidable ' 'walk on the side of the street. It is immodest for a woman to walk in the middle'' (p. 187). Women are advised not to laugh loudly (p. 187) and not to wear perfume and pass near "men not prohibited to her in marriage" — such a woman is adulterous (p. 210). Modesty, according to Thanawi "is intrinsic to faith" (p. 214). The good woman is one who does the work of Islam, adheres to the prayer and the fast, keeps her faith, is obedient and humble, gives charity and alms, keeps the fast, guards her honour by not appearing before other people, or calling out to them, or talking and laughing unnec­ essarily, or by wearing improper clothes. ' 'They abstain as well from all other kinds of shamelessness" (p. 309). That this good woman Thanawi attempts to mould is a wife, the ideal of womanhood, is further clarified by the section in Bihishti Zevar on the custom of dancing at weddings and on dancing girls. Thanawi considers dancing (and singing) by both the "randis" (in the men's quarters) and the domnis and mirasins (for the women's entertainment) "forbidden and illegitimate. Everyone knows what sin and evil the dancing of harlots entails." Apart from the fact that the men see and hear and talk with ' 'unrelated women''....' 'the worldly harm for a woman (the wife) in all this is that often her husband or bridegroom develops an interest in one of the dancers and withdraws his heart from his wife or bride, causing her to weep her whole life long." Worse, the wife's heart "may also be corrupted by (the tawaif's/domni's) songs In short all the dancing and music that goes on today is sin" (p. 93-95). Wives are thus gentle and nurturing. They are chaste, pure, and modest. These values are encoded into "hijaab'' or parda, the veil. Hijaab hides good wives from the public gaze and also simultaneously proclaims their virtue. It is also a signifier of "laaj" (shyness, modesty) and simultaneously of "sharm" (shame). How does the notion of the good wife translate for women of the musical gharana families? Speaking with traditional performers and their wives I found that many Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 49 of the ideas discussed here are held by them too. A wife makes a home, bears children, sons, for her husband's partil- ineage, looks after the home and its inmates, and fulfils many ceremonial and ritual responsibilities. A wife is polite, decorous, modest, docile, sughar (efficient and accomplished). Wives stay within the house, leaving it only in specific situations. And they do not work outside the house for a wage. (These are ideas held by them; in fact, of course, as always, quite another situation may obtain.) It seems to me, that the most important way in which these ideas find expression in the lives of the women of gharanedar families is in the attitude to the family's traditional work — music-making. "We do not Sing" Women of the gharana families were not (and are often still not) permitted to sing or even to learn music. Jamilla,6 'the wife of an accompanist artist' discussed this with me: ' 'Music is in our blood; our ears hear sur-tala from the day of our birth. So of course we understand sur-besur, raga-ragini, and many of us can even sing very well. So well, that you might ask: 'Where is the gavaiya (singer) who can match up to this woman?!' But among us, it has been the custom for generations, that we do not receive ' 'taleem'' (training, education) and that we do not sing. No man would like his sister or daughter to sing in front of strangers, sing in a concert with god knows which tabaliya or sarangiya. Singing is the work of the tawaifs." Several facts emerge from Jamilla's statement. First that "singing" is "work" as much as it is "art", i.e. art is work. "Good" women do not sing/work, though of course, they have the ability to do so, and in reality, they actually do all kinds of work (including singing) within the household. That is, there labour, including their "aesthetic labour" is appropriated by the family, while in the case of the tawaifs, it is clearly appropriated by the state/society directly (Kautilya, 1992: 351-354).7 Second, that "singing" has a very specific meaning and placement. It means that only he/she can sing who has received formal training in an acknowledged gharana. It means further to sing in public for payment. That is, it is paid work which involves receiving formal, legitimated education. Third, singing necessarily involves appearing in public, being exposed to the gaze of men other than those of the immediate family. It means therefore, giving up the status of a parda-nashin woman and implies brazenness, a lack of "sharm" or shame. Clearly under such circumstances singing cannot then be done by wives. 50 Vidya Rao

Equally clearly, it has to be done by women who are not and will not ever be wives. It is the work of the tawaifs. By the middle of the nineteenth century, for women to receive formal education, do paid work, and be without "sharm" are viewed askance. The good woman just does not do these things. Such things, if done by a woman must invariably, therefore entail a corresponding questioning of her purity and goodness. And since "to be a good wife is, by definition, to be a good woman'' (Kakar, 1981: 66) tawaifs cannot be good wives/women under this scheme.

The Contexts of Learning and Singing Wives were important because they ensured the gharana's continuity by producing heirs to its musical tradition. They were also important because they brought with them at marriage a "dowry" of musical materials from their natal homes. While this was acknowledged, wives never found a place in the gharana's genealogy. Nor did they ever perform or officially take on a student. In this context, there is an interesting story about the origin of a set of tabla bandishes known as "Bibi ki gat." The story goes that Ram Sahay (of the Banaras tabla gharana) was sent as a little boy to learn from an ustad in Lucknow. The ustad's wife, who was in strict parda, used to arrange for food to be cooked separately for the gifted child who lived in the ustad's house. Then one day, as was often the case, the ustad had to go to Nepal on work, for performances at the court there. Ram Sahay was left behind in Lucknow with instructions to do his riaz till his ustad came back. Going about her work, one day the ustad's wife heard the child sobbing, and asked him why he was crying. "Do you miss your parents? Your home? Is it something special to eat that you want?'' It was none of those. Ram Sahay was crying because ever since his ustad had gone away, he had been unable to learn any new gat. The ustad's wife said, "Is that all? Well, my son, 'tumse kya parda' — why should I maintain parda from you, why hide anything from you." She called the child into the zanana, and proceeded to teach him several gats that she had brought with her from her father's house. Till today these gats are an integral part of the Banaras repertoire and are known as "Bibi ki gat." It is not therefore as if good wives did not achieve musical excellence. Jamilla told me about her husband's phuphi (aunt — phuphi is father's sister). "She knew many beautiful and difficult bandishes, and her mastery over the gayaki left you astounded. If you heard her, but couldn't see her you would think this was A — Khan Saheb8 singing — she had such Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 51 taiyyari. And Jamilla's husband had laughed, recalling his youth — "Phuphi would call out to me, 'Hey, you scoundrel, come here and learn this!' " But Phuphi never became known to the patrons of music. No one came to hear her sing, nor paid to hear her, nor even gave her nazar to learn from her. Though people learnt from her, she had no shagirds, she tied no ganda on the wrist of any of the young men who learnt from her, and her name does not appear in the gharana's official genealogical tree (Neuman, 1980: 97). Like other women in patriarchal societies, Phuphi and Bibi lived their lives, worked, sang, taught, made history, but were never inscribed into that history. They were, as Jamilla is today, the epitome of the good wife.

Sharm and Hijaab '"There is nothing to be proud of in a woman's body' — so girls are admonished if they are seen to be dressing in an ostentatious manner, or if a woman becomes too proud of her beauty" (Das, 1988: 200). A woman's body, its processes — menstruation, pregnancy and its sexu­ ality are a source of sharm or shame (Jeffrey, 1979 and 1989). Hijaab is a symbolic and concrete way of articulating the shame inherent in the female body. Hijaab also articulates the female body's vulnerability, and its virtue through the act of its veiling. Hijaab and virtue thus signify each other. Raisa (aged about 50), daughter of a wealthy Lucknow Taluqdar family says:' 'The beauty of Indian women is hijaab; it is our greatest gift." And Jamilla says, unconsciously adjusting her dupatta as she speaks: "My mother was most particular about parda. I was never allowed to go out, or appear before strangers unveiled. And even in the house, woe betide me if my dupatta slipped off, or if I tossed it carelessly around my neck! It has to be worn properly, covering the head — not one hair was to seen — and covering my bosom properly." Jamilla also tells me: "I never go out. I feel afraid to do so, I don't know the roads, the buses. I' d get lost!" But hijaab is also, I realise, a way of being. It is the complete and subservient silence that is implied when Jamilla says: "In the old days the men would go 'pardes' (to other places) for work. They'd return after months. We women would never ask about their trips and what had happened on them. It wasn't our business to ask questions." Hijaab is thus the real parda, a real seclusion of women, behind a burqa or within the house — but it is also at a symbolic level, the parda of appropriate behaviour, of respectful silence. This idea finds expression in the views expressed in Sayyid Mumtaz Ali's treatise on women's rights in Islamic law, Huquq-al-Niswan (Minault, 1985). Considered radical for its time (when he 52 Vidya Rao saw the manuscript in the late 1890s, Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan was so shocked as to tear it up and throw it away) the treatise maintains that though practiced somewhat excessively in India, ' 'Parda, in the sense of modest behaviour, is natural to human nature and characteristic of civilised socie­ ties..." Believers, both men and women, should keep their eyes cast down when speaking with members of the opposite sex (i.e. neither gaze nor be gazed upon) should cover their bodies, women should not "parade their beauty and ornaments in public", women should veil themselves with a shawl or chadar, such veiling will protect them from harassment and give them chances of greater mobility. A century later, in the 1970s, Patricia Jeffery (1979) still found that "a woman should be modest in demeanor and dress, and she should not chatter in a fashion which draws attention to herself, or walk around with her eyes flitting from one object to another. There should be restraint and distancing between men and women, which is achieved through bodily concealment, avoidance of eye contact and conversational distance." The parda-nashin woman is the sheltered, protected (passive?) woman, one who "does not work''. Hijaab signifies also a woman's sharm or shame in her womanhood. Hijaab therefore signals a woman's experience of herself as simultaneously pure, beautiful, protected, passive, vulnerable and shameful (Papanex and Minault, 1982: 34-47). If hijaab signifies feminine modesty, it also suggests its opposite, that is, the woman who is not parda-nashin, who is exposed to the male gaze, and who works in the world. Such a woman is not sheltered, is not pure or virtuous as is the wife. And while she shares in the shamefulness of the female body, she herself has no sharm about it. This woman is the performer, the tawaif.

The Tawaif Jamilla's husband says to me one day: "If you want to sing you have to forget about sharm. This work involves shamelesness. It is "behsarmi aur behayaai ka kaam''. He is right of course. To dare to perform, to risk telling one's story, giving oneself away to an unnamed, faceless audience, one has truly to be quite "shameless'' — all self doubt must be held at bay. The performer has to be almost narcissistic on the one hand, but on the other so "self-less" as to fully acknowledge and proclaim her vulnerability. At one time this "besharmi" included the expression of a certain relationship with one's body and with the viewing male gaze, the expression too of a certain sexuality. Now, today, when much of that is muted if not totally erased, there Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 53 is still "besharmi" in the daring to be the nayika, to speak of her/one's desire. "Yeh besharmi aur behayaai ka kaam hai". This is a statement I have heard repeatedly from musicians — and it is one that strikes me as particu­ larly layered, because these very musicians also often speak approvingly of what they perceive as quiet, modest demeanour on the part of a (woman) singer. The shamelessness that the singer has to have/has is therefore, not "bad-tameezi" or "be-tehzeebi" (i.e. ill mannered or unsophisticated be­ haviour) but an ability to speak/sing in public, and to appear before other men. But the singer expresses herself "as a woman'' — i.e. sweetly, gently, and though she is exposed to the public gaze, she is modesty attired, her body is fully concealed. But she speaks, and her beauty and ornaments are paraded in public. The singer is not therefore "shameless'' as we would understand that word in English — rather her sharm seems to be constituted differently. I recall, as I write, my first meeting with a tawaif Nazeera. Nazeera, about 40 when I met her, was an attractive, well-dressed woman. There was something about her — the way she held herself, the way her eyes looked straight into yours, the way she pitched and projected her voice, that signalled that she was not the average middle-class Muslim woman. Her polite behaviour had a tinge of something else that I couldn't quite place — an absence of subservience? Yet she was never rude, unsophisticated, or vulgar. Nor was she "shameless". Nazeera lives at a time when the tawaifs have all but vanished from our society and culture. Yet I found many qualities that I understand to be associated with the tawaifs to live on in her. Who were the tawaifs? How were they different from wives? The tawaifs who lived and performed about a generation ago appear to be counterpoints to the image of the good wife. At a time when most women received no education, had no economic or political power, the tawaifs were wealthy, powerful, intelligent artists. They never married. They lived with­ out the ' 'protection'' of husbands, fathers or sons in kothas, which were managed by a senior tawaif, the Chaudhrain. Though tawaifs did not marry, they entered into sexual relationships with their patrons and often also with other musicians. They received education — reading and writing, poetry, literature and philosophy, music, dance and the art of repartee. They were working women, "peshewar" women.12 Every night there would be per­ formances at the kotha to which their patrons would come. Sometimes they would be invited to perform in the homes of their patrons. Then, as one singer told me, ' 'The sethji would send his carriage for me and my accompanists. We would be received with honour. The audience listened to us with respect. 54 Vidya Rao No one dared touch me or misbehave with me.13 After the performance I would be richly rewarded with money, jewellery." The children born to a tawaif were her own; they did not belong to their father's patrilineage. Tawaifs often limited the number of children they birthed, but many adopted daughters. Unlike the rest of patriarchal society, daughters rather than sons were welcomed and prized as potential earners and supporters of the tawaif's old age. The tawaifs were educated, "the only women in India who enjoy the privilege of learning to read, to dance and to sing." And for this reason, "a well bred and respectable woman would...blush to acquire any one of these accomplishments" (Dubois, 1906: 586). While (perhaps because) relation­ ships between husbands and wives were generally expected to be formal and hierarchical, relationships between men and the tawaifs they patronised were easy and relaxed — at any rate the tawaif was trained to project just such an attitude. The tawaifs were witty and charming. They knew exactly how to speak to each person, how to put him at his ease (and, one might add, how to extract money and gifts from him). Skilled in the art of seduction, their behaviour was never indecent or crude— "they employ all the resoruces and artifice of coquetry...(but) their quiet seduction...resemble in no way the disgraceful methods (of the prostitutes) of Europe..." and ' 'with all their arts and blandishments these dancer-women had nothing of that nefarious bold­ ness which characterises the European prostitute" (John Grose quoted by Raghuvanshi, 1969). In the nineteenth century, tawaifs were among the few women who owned lands in their own names, were entitled to receive the 'revenues' of these lands, which they could inherit from their mothers and bequeath to their daughters. These lands were received by them as gifts, often as grants in perpetuity, from their patrons, or as their matrilineally inherited property. About their wealth Fuller (1984: 131-32) writes "...(A) first-class nautch woman may have jewels and lace of value from one to ten thousand rupees; that her fee for singing for one night is fifteen rupees but could be as high as 500 rupees for one entertainment." Interestingly, when the British an­ nexed Avadh the tawaifs were among the few occupational groups, and the only women earning enough to have a taxable income (Oldenburg, 1989). Regarding their political influence, Sharar (1989) writes that in the Lucknow of Avadh nawabs, it was difficult to get an audience at court without the intercession of a famous tawaif. Other tawaifs like Lal Kanwar, who rose to be empress of India, wielded much influence at court. Begum Sumroo too began life as a tawaif (Saha, 1992). It would seem then that wives and tawaifs differed in at least two Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 55 important ways. Tawaifs represented passionate, romantic, deceitful, de­ structive love rather than bloodless duty14 and the purely other-oriented love wives owe their husbands. Simultaneously they also signified the material world of power, wealth, and the sensuous pleasures of the body. It would, however, be a gross oversimplification to conclude that tawaifs were completely free of the restrictions that wives faced. Like their respect­ able sisters, tawaifs were equally circumscribed by the norms of a patriarchal society. Though they had power, wealth and a certain degree of freedom to be articulate, this in no way meant that they were completely "free". Tawaifs were perfectly aware that their lives were precariously dependant on their patron's goodwill. Old age could mean complete impoverishment, and terrible hardship. Young tawaifs, on the threshold of their career often dreaded the life that awaited them. I heard about one tawaif whose nath utarwai (initiation) ceremony was to be sponsored by an elderly and, according to my informant, rather ugly nobleman. She was about 14 years old at the time. In horror and fear she had run away, tried to hide herself, but to no avail. The lives of tawaifs were often at risk. There is the story of Janki Bai Chhapan Chhuri: Janki Bai was a leading tawaif of her times, a very good singer and poet of repute. One of the men who used to frequent her mehfils wanted her to become his exclusive concubine. Janki Bai's refussal to accede to his demand resulted in a gory episode. She was abducted as she was returning from a mehfil, her face was slashed with a knife 56 times. Janki Bai didn't die, nor did she stop singing, but she carried the scars of that encounter ever afterwards. Such incidents must not have been uncommon: a similar incident is recounted in the story The Nose Cutters by Ghulam Abbas (1991). The taiwaif's subjection to patriarchy is clearly seen in her ambiguous placement in the gharana. All tawaifs learnt from the gharanedar ustads and became their gandabandha shagirds. As such they could claim to be members of a legitimate gharana tradition. In turn, they taught many people who came to them to learn, and were recognised and revered for this. But being women they could not make their own gandabandha shagirds. One tawaif, who had learnt from ustads of the Delhi and Patiala gharana, told me how many of the young men of the Delhi gharana families would come to her to learn. She would teach them, but they would always be known as their father's or uncle's disciples; never hers. She said this without regret or rancour — accepting this as "the way of the world''. But she did also say and with a trace of anger: "What have we not done to learn! But we aren't of the gharana, we are outsiders, so they (the ustads) don't teach us 56 Vidya Rao everything. From us they always keep something back." Gharana affiliation is therefore available only in half measure to both wives and tawaifs. Wives are never inscribed into the gharana's genealogy though they are the means by which the core-gharana perpetuates itself. Tawaifs can claim gharana membership, but cannot continue the tradition — or more correctly, their continuing of the tradition is acknowledged but not inscribed. So, in many ways tawaifs seem to be not so different from their respect­ able sisters. Wives and Tawaifs: Crossing the Boundaries Whenever I go to meet Mahtab Bai, an 81 year old tawaif, she has her head fully covered — when she goes out of her house, she wraps herself up in a chadar or shawl, as would any virtuous housewife. Yet there is a difference too — a hint of laughter that seems to me to change the character and meaning of her hijaab. Mahtab Bai has come all dressed up, parading her beauty and her ornaments (?!) because she has promised to perform for me some old arth-bhav thumris in the traditional "bhav-batana" style. She stopped performing in mehfils many years ago "when the rajas abandoned us", but used, till recently to sing over the radio. Mahtab is laughing as she unwraps her enveloping shawl. I can see her face now — for this occasion, she has lined her eyes with surma, darkened her brows and reddened her lips. Earrings dangle from her ears; the bangles on her wrists tinkle as she puts away her shawl and adjusts her saree of silk edged with gota (gold lace). She says: "When I was leaving home, I wrapped myself up well, so the neighbours wouldn't see me all dressed up like this. Someone asked me where I was going, but I. walked briskly away and (miming the pulling of a veil closer around herself) I told them, 'I'm in a hurry! Oh, these winter winds! How cold they are!'" Mahtab, who now lives in a "respectable" middle class neighbourhood, does not sing in her own house: ' 'What would the neighbours think?'' Then ' 'Can you sing where you live?'' she asks me. Mahtab knows the rules about modesty. There are the rules governing the behaviour of tawaifs, but to these are now added the rules governing the behaviour of wives. She follows all these rules, but also she laughs about them in other contexts. Mahtab tells me about herself as a young girl learning from her ustad: ' 'I would be on my feet, at his service all day. I would cook for him; he would not eat what was cooked by anyone else. He would teach me something and I would practice that till late at night, then I'd massage his legs, dropping off to sleep with exhaustion as I sat. Finally I would be allowed to go and sleep. Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 57

But he would wake up at 3.00 or 4.00 in the morning, wanting to eat halwa, and again only I could make it. So I would wake up, make halwa, and take it to him. Then he'd say, 'Where's the point of going back to sleep now. You might as well start your morning riaz'." I hear her saying many things here — the rigorous training; the pride in being someone so special for the ustad; but I also discern an almost wife-life respect and obedience. As she speaks, her voice sounds to me astonishingly like Draupadi's as she advises Satyabhama on the duties of a good wife. Is studenthood then tinged with a subalterneity reminiscent of wifehood? The loyalty tawaifs had for their ustads, even patrons, is often spoken about. One tawaif faithfully cared for a singer who later became very famous. She looked after him during the lean years when he was experimenting with and evolving a style that was to make him one of the greatest singers of this century. Another cajoled, bullied, encouraged her young tabliya to practice every minute of the day and become like the greats — Thirakwa, Anokhe Lal, Kanthe Maharaj. Yet another said that when her ustad died she pulver­ ised her jewellery and buried it with him; she never sang in public again. A kind of sati, I wonder? Often tawaifs in actual fact become wives. I met one who had been a singer at one of the more important princely states in the 1920s. A visiting nobleman had heard her and fallen in love with her. They had married, and after that she never sang again, though she recounted to me those glorious days when her mother would make a poultice of hot ghee and suji to wrap around her throat to preserve her voice — and, when listening to her, kings would gift her with ropes of pearls. I was told about another tawaif who had been whisked away by an admirer as she was returning after performing in a mehfil at a nawab's house. Her admirer had married her; as a good wife, she was now not permitted to sing. My informant told me: "Whenever there was a mujra in her husband's house, she would stand listening behind the chilman, shedding bitter tears. She lacked nothing but music, and so her heart was empty." Tawaifs married often for practical reasons, to ensure a home and security for their old age at a time when mehfil music faced an increasingly precarious future. They became good wives, but often sorely missed their lives as artists and performers. Nor were such marriages easy. They had to face taunts, jealousy, often cruelty and isolation from their in-laws. Smt. Naina Devi told me about a tawaif who married a son of a royal family of one of the states in Punjab. No one ever spoke to her, treated her as an upstart and an outsider. Once she had been admired and respected. Now as the wife of her patron she had no one at all to call her friend and the source of her charm and 58 Vidya Rao attraction, her music, was denied to her. Did tawaifs ever marry for "love'' ? It is hard to tell. But there is the story of Rano-dil, a dancing girl who so seized Dara Shiko's fancy that he insisted on marrying her. She was faithful to him ever after, and when he was defeated, refused to submit to Aurangzeb, preferring instead to slash her face and cut off her long hair, thus mutilating the external facets of her self that seemed to have attracted him. (Saha, 1992) But as Christine de Pisan wrote, these stories were written by men, and "love" is perhaps an invention of patriarchy. I don't know what Rano-dil really felt, or thought. I do recall though Mahtab saying, "Oh many men wanted to marry me, but I refused. You marry, and then these men come at you with their beards intoning, 'Music is haraam; you shouldn't sing!'" More often however one hears and reads about the faithless tawaif— another invention of patriarchy? Thus Fida Hussain 'Narsi' the Parsi theatre actor recounting dialogue from a play — "The tawaif says: Do you ask a tawaif for love? Do you not know that from the hair on her head to the soles of her feet, a tawaif is one big lie?'' And Mahtab, laughing, says "You can't sing thumri unless you fall in love — not once, but ten times, twenty times!" On the other hand, there was Golapi "a prostitute'' [sic] of Calcutta who wrote a play, Apurba Sati (1875) which depicted ' 'changes in the moral life of a daughter of a prostitute on getting education'' and of her "devotion...for love" (Joardar, 1985: 15-16). What did Golapi really think about these issues? Apurba Sati was written jointly with a man, Ashutosh Das — did this influence its writing? Or was Golapi influenced and inspired by the spirit of her times, and pained by her own increasingly brutalised life in the changing milieu of the late nineteenth century to see modern education, and marriage as redeeming factors? Like Binodini Dasi, did Golapi reserve her more personal, perhaps more ambivalent views for less public forums? If, willingly, reluctantly or opportunistically, tawaifs became or aspired to become wives, did wives ever become tawaifs? It appears that they did. In any case, the possibility that they might do so, seems to have haunted social reformers and householders alike. Why else the elaborate rules and interdictions that comprised stri-dharma, but to keep wives from lapsing into self-seeking lustful tawaif-like stribhava. And social reformers in the nineteenth century seemed to ground their plea for abol­ ishing child-marriage, for allowing widow remarriage and for encouraging women's education on the fear that for want of other options good wives might, when deserted or widowed, end up in the kotha (Kishwar, 1989; Oldenburg, 1991). Commercial cinema often uses this narrative device to ' 'explain'' the tawaif. Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 59

The Nayika: Transcending the Boundaries It is to this that I now move — to the realm of fantasy where the distinction between wives and tawaifs seems to be blurred. In order to do this I will examine a few popular bandishes of the thumri tradition, and show how the text as given and as recreated in performance blurs the lines between wife and tawaif, between the parda-nashin and the behayaa women. I begin with a performance of the gat known as ' 'chunri ki gat'', the ' 'gat of the veil". Gats are an important item of the kathak repertoire. They use no words, but are performed to sarangi lehra and tabla accompaniment. Chunri ki gat is of the type of gat known as gat bhav. Here, though no words are used , the tabla syllables themselves are read as a narrative, and the dancer performs not just intricate footwork but shows, echoing the story spun out by the tabla's bols, innumerable chunris — different moods, mo­ tives, narratives of the chunri. The nayika is seen veiling — and significantly — unveiling herself. Each chunri is created, spun before your eyes, the performer/nayika veils him/her/herself with it, and then — and this is the thrilling, climactic movement — unveils the face, looking out, frontally, at the viewer from a now discarded, non-existent (yet ever-so-present) chunri. Who, then, one might ask is veiled, who appears unveiled? The dancer, behayaa, depicts for us haya, laaj, via the chunri, but in the process, also depicts it via the shedding of the chunri. What then is haya? Is it the veiling, the depiction of veiling, the sidelong glance through the lowered chunri, a glance calculated to capture your heart? When I, a woman, witness this, as performed by a man, does he mirror for me my own haya, my own behayaai? I will never know! Listen to the words of this dadra:

Kahun ka se sharam ki hai baat Badi mushkil se katati hai raat, more Ram!

To whom shall I tell this shameful secret, Dear god, of the painful passing of each night!

These emotions, of nights passed in feverish anticipation, hopeless wait­ ing, despair, are not to be spoken of, not seemly in a good woman. Yet, in this dadra, the tawaif both signifies and underscores this "shame", and shamelessly proclaims it, both the emotion and its attendant shamefulness. In her spinning out of the dadra's musical and poetic possibilities, she betrays a revelling in both the emotion(s) of desire and shame and in the shameful­ ness of proclaiming both emotion(s) and this shame. So she sings then: 60 Vidya Rao "Zara dheera se bolo, koi sun legal" (speak softy, I implore you, someone may hear). As in the chunri ki gat we have here simultaneously the fact of love/desire, the experiencing of desire as shameful, the articulation of an inability to speak about desire (to do so would be shameful) and finally actually speaking (singing) about both desire and sharm. Significantly it is the tawaif, she who is behayaa who articulates this "shameful secret", but in a manner that does not directly refer to desire. It seems to me that it is unclear who is actually singing this song. We know it is the tawaif who sings, but the narrative voice — whose is that? According to popular convention, the tawaif, a behayya woman has no compunctions about expressing desire. Equally according to popular con­ vention, the good wife would never express desire. The dadra expresses the nayika's inability to speak of her situation. Yet it does so precisely by speaking about it, and by detailing it, musically. Thus the nayika both does and does not speak, both does and does not freely articulate her desire. Is the nayika then wife or tawaif, or neither? Something of this inability to tell clearly who is silent, and who speaks also seems to come through in this beautiful, rarely-sung thumri in Pilu —

Kanha mukh se na bole Bajubandh khole.

Kanha utters not a word; (Silently) he loosens the (my) armband.

Kanha is silent, but his actions speak louder than any words. The nayika is (presumably) silent, quiscent — the words of the thumri imply her pas­ sivity. In fact she is completely absent in this thumri — her absence marks her presence. There is no direct reference to her, to her desire or her shame. The thumri presents only Kanha in its frame. Kanha is, he does, he acts. She, absent, silent, is acted upon. Yet the song is in the nayika's voice. Can we take it for granted then that she is only and merely passive? In her speaking about Kanha's action the nayika narrates Kanha. In her silence about herself which is strangely vocal, does the nayika — and so therefore does the tawaif, who evokes this nayika — reinscribe womanly reticence with her voice, her desire? And if we take this to be so, then who is this nayika — wife or tawaif. It is interesting that a large number of thumri/dadra song texts deal with relationshps within the family. It seems to me that in such bandishes it is difficult to tell who the nayika really is. Consider this bandish: Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 61

Nihure nihure buhare, anganwa goriya nihure Kangana pahan goriya, angaria buhare Jhuki jhuki dekhe nayanwa goriya nihure.

How charming she looks as she sweeps the courtyard: She wears a bracelet as she sweeps the courtyard Glancing from under downcast eyes.

Apart from the nayikas complicity in this game of kindling desire (is the wearing of the kangan purely coincidental?) — that immediately signal a bold and consciously articulated sexuality, there is the fact of her gazing, albeit her eyes are downcast. She is both bashful, yet able to wrest the gase. At whom does she glance? As the song proceeds we realise it is the devar.16 So, the tawaif sings this song but she sings it as if she were a wife. Tawaifs have no devars, it is wives who have devars. Wives may desire their devars, act upon such desire, and even sing about it in "women's folk songs", but in a public forum, it is only the tawaif who will sing about such desire. It is also significant that she who is the ' 'other woman'' might well be comment­ ing upon, singing about another raas that might be transpiring at precisely this moment in the patron's home. The tawaif sings, in the mehfil, of this desire that is being enacted in the angan. There are other family dramas that the tawaifs sing of in the mehfil:

Nanadiya kahe mare bol? Ab hi mangaye, khaye maroongi bikh ghol! Ek to balam mora moso ruse Dooje nanadiya mare bol!

Nanad, why does he/you abuse me ? Fetch me poison, let me swallow it and die! First there's the indifference of my loved one. And then these harsh words of his Then, you too nanad, speak harsh words to me.

Balam means "beloved". It could also mean husband. So, but for the apostrophising of the nanad, this song could be addressed to or be about an estranged lover. But the address to the nanad locates this song firmly within the four walls of the home. The nanad's ambiguity as the young wife's friend and confidante but also her tormentor come through in the first line. Does the nayika address the nanad about another's harsh words, or does she 62 Vidya Rao ask the nanad about her own behaviour? Who is the nanad? The tawaif has no husband, and therefore no nanad. The tawaif sings here, entertaining her patron, in the voice of the wife who waits patiently, perhaps hopelessly at home. But who is this wife? Is she the other woman who waits at home, or is it the tawaif herself in a long-forgotten life, when escaping from her nanad's cruel taunts, or cast out by her in-laws, she had found herself in the kotha? Is the patron aware of the irony of the situation as he listens to the tawaif singing about male infidelity:

Kar le sawatiya se preet Yahi mere bhaag me likha hai, raja.

So, love this other woman, then. Its my fate (to sufer thus) Icing of my heart or more saucily:

Bol more raja, kahan gavai saari ratiya Sautan ke sang hasat bolat Hamse karat ho ruthi ruthi battiya.

Tell me, love, where you've spent all the night? You laugh and talk (lovingly) with my rival For me you have only harsh words.

Who is the nayika, who the sautan/rival? In conventional terms, it is the wife who waits for an unfaithful husband who spends night after night at the tawaif's mehfil. It is with the witty tawaif that he talks and laughs. The songs appear to be in the voice of the deceived wife. Yet they are actually sung by the tawaif. Who then is the singer, the narrator of this story, to whom has this happened? I want to end with what I think is perhaps the most interesting visual depiction of this wife/tawaif blurring. Though this scene I describe from the film Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam does not refer to thumri at all, yet it is such a powerful depiction of what I have tried to say here, that I would like to describe it. The young wife, now an alcoholic, pleads with her husband to stay with her. Bored, he brushes her aside — she can never be as interesting, he tells her, as the women in his baagan bari. The wife rests her hand on a pillar and looks up at her husband — her voice is demure, gentle, yet her eyes burn Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 63 with the desire to live, to be herself, in the only way she knows how. She says, pleading a little, seducing a little, ' 'Let me live in your baagan bari then, that I may see you". But she is a wife. She has to be in the home. Only the baijis live in the baagan bari. Chhoti bahu tries to be both, and so she dies a terrible death. Could Chhoti bahu have lived? If she was with us today could she have reconciled within herself, flying in the free of patriarchy, the dutiful wife and the romantic tawaif? For me, the songs of the tawaif hold out the hope that somone, somewhere has imagined a woman who is not split up into respectable wife and articulate tawaif, who has been able to be both ' 'good'' and "active". I take hope then in the fact that if this has been possible for the imagined nayika of thumri, it should be possible some day for all real women.

NOTES

This paper is part of my ongoing research on Thumri and Thumri Singers, I am grateful to the Ford Foundation for their research grant which has enabled me to do this work. 1. For a brief description of this ceremony see my "Thumri and Thumri Singers: Changes in Style and Life-style'', presented at the seminar on Cultural Reorienta­ tion, Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla, October 1991. Forthcoming volume from HAS. 2. When speaking of gharana members, unless I am very specifically speaking about women, I shall conciously use the pronoun "he" rather than "he/she" or just "she''. This is because in the world of professional musicians it is the men who are inscribed into the gharana's genealogy and history. Women's relationship with the gharana is not similarly inscribed, though they are present in its history. See my article in Economic Times, 25 January 1994. 3. This knowledge or ' 'ilm'' can be seen as an incorporeal property. Anthropologists including Malinowski and Lowie have referred to the ownership by individuals or groups of exclusive rights in dances, legends, designs, magic, etc., and of elaborate economic transactions involving such non-material properties. It is significant that when a musician today teaches something to a student, he often says "Yeh cheez tumhe doonga" — "I'll give you/gift you this cheez". Significantly "cheez" means both "bandish" (musical composition) as well as "an object". 4. This idea runs through much textual discourse, that woman are inherently bad, weak, and yet as aspects of Shakti, they are also sacred and powerful. This shakti can be harnessed by controlling women through injunctions and prescriptions that consti­ tute stri-dharma. Women can thus be rendered auspicious benevolent, nurturing wives. See for instance Shulman (1980), Wadley (1988), and Das (1980). 64 Vidya Rao

5. This image of Sita of course ignores and erases other images of Sita as more active and ariculate. 6. All names of women are not their real names. This and other quotations in this paper are from my discussions with tawaifs, other musicians, and women of their families, patrons and their wives. These discussions have taken place over the course of several years; most intensively from 1989 to the present. 7. Kautilya' s Arthashastra is one text which strongly suggests the complete and direct appropriation of the courtesan's work by the state, at all stages of her career — her sexuality, her art "work" and her work as a spinner in old age. 8. Referring to the doyen of the gharana to which her husband belongs. 9. "Taiyyari'' means the perfection and ease that come from long riaz (practice and study) — it is a state of musical ''readiness". 10. As always there are exceptions. Women bring in the incorporeal dowry of their natal family's musical inheritance when they marry, and such alliances are avidly sought when arranging marriages. Often, if a woman's natal family is of very high musical status, succeeding generations will certainly include her when tracing their ancestry, that is, they will trace through the maternal line at this point rather than only through patrilineal kin, in order to claim this illustrious ancestor or gharana. See in this connection Neuman (1980) who quotes just such as an example. 11. In both Patricia Jeffrey's books (1979 and 1989) one finds repeated references to the social perception and women's own perception of the female body as a source of shame. 12. "Peshewar aurat'' means at one level only a working woman, a woman who works for a living, has a a profession. But because virtuous woman should ideally have no profession other than that of wife-and-mother, "peshewar" acquires the meaning that such a woman is not entirely respectable. 13. In actual fact it appears however that tawaifs often were harassed. At least one tawaif gave up singing because of this harassment. I heard of many such instances in the course of my field work. 14. When I first began to learn thumri, my guru Smt. Naina Devi told me: "For most women, Sita is the ideal. But her love is a tame emotion that springs from her duty as a wife. To sing thumri you must learn to be Radha. Radha's love has nothing to do with duty. Radha broke all rules in her love." The sarangi maestro Hanuman Prasad Mishra expressed a very similar idea:' 'Understand the nayika's heart when you sing. Sing as Meera sang. Become Meera, give up everything." Needless to say, though Meera may have been conveniently recast and rendered harmless as a saint, one cannot but be aware of her rebellion and strong individuality, not to speak of her articulation of desire. 15. Strictly it is not therefore an example of thumri per se — but I mention it here because, as I see it kathak and thumri are inseparable, and also because this dance Wives, Tawaifs and Nayikas 65

item anticipates and parallels several thumris on this theme. 16. Devar is husband's younger brother, with whom traditionally a relaxed, affectionate relationship prevails. The devar-bhabhi relationship is also traditionally considered to be one of mutual sexual attraction, and many songs refer to this. 17. Nanadiya, or nanad is the husband's younger sister. In songs and folklore, the nanad is both the young wife's confidante and her tormentor.

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