Abstract
Manish Gaekwad, The Last Courtesan: Writing my Mother’s Memoir, 2023, 184 pp., ₹599, Harper Collins. ISBN: 978-93-5699-312-9 (Hardback).
It is not often that a son writes about his mother’s life. It is even more unusual when the son, an acknowledged writer and journalist, chooses to tell the story in his mother’s voice, submerging his own authorial self and views and thoughts on situations and events that would surely have concerned him too. This extraordinary fact alone makes the slim book a significant addition to the growing body of literature on courtesans, their lives, histories, repertoires, etc. But this is not its only quality.
Written in the first person, as an address to her now-grown son, the book takes us through the many phases of Rekha Bai’s life, from her birth in ‘a ramshackle hut’ on the outskirts of Poona (Pune), to her last days. We are made aware of the poverty and hardship into which Rekha Bai was born, of the difficult lives of the women in her family, of her drunkard father, of her marriage while still a child—‘sold’ in exchange for the waiving of a loan—to being sold, yet again, this time by her in-laws, to the kothas (residences of courtesans) of Bow Bazaar in Calcutta.
That vivid description of Rekha Bai’s first glimpse of the kotha transports us immediately to those narrow alleys, decrepit buildings with their unlit stairs, the sounds of women laughing, the tinkling of ghunghroos (ankle bells) and of musical instruments. It is a space full of sights, sounds, smells, bawling children, men milling about, the sounds of musical instruments and ankle bells, and the overpowering smell of flowers and incense. Yet despite all this,
[t]here was something harmonious even in the chaos … I knew I had come to a house I would prefer to all the other houses I had lived in so far. It was alien, but it also felt safe.
Rekha Bai speaks of sensing harmony within chaos, of a space that, though alien and strange, felt safe. How might we understand this?
I recall here Veena Oldenburg’s work on Lucknow tawaifs (courtesans), and their sense of friendship, community and pride in themselves (Oldenburg, 1991). I recall too the words of a tawaif whom I had met: She had been regaling me with stories of the many men (rajas and nawabs, all) who had been in love with her, and had wanted to marry her. I’d asked why she hadn’t married one of them. Her reply: ‘Jise mausiqi se mohabbat hai, uske liye shaadi barbaadi hai’. In other words, for those who love music, marriage is the end of your freedom, the end of music. Why would I consider marriage? This is a good life for me.
Work on courtesans and sex workers has often taken one of two approaches. The first—to see such women as oppressed, in need of rescue (at one time through marriage and symbols of ‘modern’ domesticity—such as the sewing machine). The second approach—to see them as proto-feminist figures, the first free women, not subject to the yoke of patriarchy, and the kotha as a ‘free space’. Rekha Bai’s story makes us aware that both perspectives are only partially correct and do not accord women like her a full understanding of their lives and situations, or indeed full respect. It is here perhaps that this curiously first-person account—as spoken by Rekha Bai, as recorded by her son in her voice—is significant in bringing us closer to an understanding of the lives of tawaifs, their inner world, their hopes and concerns, their life-choices (indeed as with us all, these choices made within the context of limiting circumstances), and above all their ability—Rekha Bai’s most certainly—to live life fully, bravely and consciously.
As I read, I am constantly also reminded of the novel Umrao Jaan Ada (Ruswa, 2010)—the ups and downs, sudden changes, the careful negotiations to stay ‘safe’ in a world where women are both ‘free’ of patriarchal family structures, yet never free of the difficulties of being a woman, and a woman alone, unsheltered, in a patriarchal world. There are friendships between the women, and indeed, there are rivalries too. There is the constant concern about safety and about insisting on the respect due to them as women, working women and artists. There are also moments of security and love with a particular patron, and certainly the sense of familial ties and deep bonding with other women in the kotha. There is the need to move when things get difficult, and there are the human and changing emotions that Rekha Bai experiences—love—for her child, for a certain patron, for a friend.
Rekha Bai’s story also alerts me to the fact that by the time she was entertaining men at the kotha, the music repertoire consisted largely of film songs. And again, the reminder that early talkies drew heavily from the music of the kotha—almost all the women actors were from the tawaif community. However, by Rekha Bai’s time, the borrowing was the other way around—the women were singing filmi songs, and dancing to these, often imitating the actors’ movements as well. In the kotha, it is what the patron wants to hear that decides the repertoire. A tawaif cannot afford to be unaware of/ respond to what the audience wants to hear.
As research has increased in this area, we are indeed now aware that tawaifs are not a single monolithic category. Rekha Bai’s story also emphasises this complexity. She herself was born into the Kanjarbhat community, but her affinal family were Bedias. Women of the Bedia community have traditionally been considered entertainers and sex workers. The name Kanjarbhat, however, is interesting too—a group among the tawaifs is indeed called Kanjari. In my own research, I was told that Kanjaris were a ‘lower’ category of entertainers. The word often refers to a gypsy/nomadic community, a (so-called) ‘criminal tribe’, and a person of ‘loose moral character’. This conflation of the categories of nomad and criminal with loose morals is deeply disturbing, reminding us of the stigma attached to gypsies who are considered to be thieves the world over (even while their nomadic life is also romanticised). And indeed, in India, they were notified/listed as Criminal Tribes by the colonial government (refer to Devy, 2006). Her Kanjarbhat and Bedia connections help me understand the choice of repertoire sung/danced by Rekha Bai. Kanjaris and Bednis, from what I understood (from the women I spoke with in my own research), were considered lower in the hierarchies and this was reflected in their performance repertoires. Popular (often more risqué) pieces were sung by the Bedni and Kanjari ‘entertainers’, while Kanchani tawaifs considered themselves ‘artists’, and sang and danced ‘traditional’/ ‘classical’ repertoires. But the line between entertainer and artist seems fluid: Rekha Bai mentions an incident where one of the tawaifs ‘from [a] musical gharana’, Geeta of the generous heart, helped her train with her own ustad, and thus broaden her repertoire and improve her skills.
The book is peopled with qawwalas (women qawwals, singers of divine love), dancers and singers of both ‘classical’ and ‘popular/filmi’ styles and repertoires, eunuchs, tablas and sarangis (musical instruments), goons, and rasiks. It is an extraordinary world, described in detail and with complete honesty, to which we are introduced.
I want to return to the voice in which this book is written. It is a first-person voice, that of the protagonist, speaking to her son. It is addressed to him. This story is first of all for his ears, for him to hear. Somewhere this reminds me of my own understanding of the musical form, thumri—and very possibly all performances at the kotha—and of the centrality of the address. Within the text of a thumri, we hear someone speak to another, an intimate other (present or absent); within the performance, the singer addresses, intimately and with immediacy, each listener. Is this significant? I think it is. Rekha Bai’s telling, brought to us by her son, carries these complex layers of addressing and listening; we, the readers, are drawn into this drama, exactly as are listeners at a mehfil performance of thumri.
There is the richness and detail of a life, recounted and then told here without prevarication, without self-pity, without glossing over ‘problem’ situations, with an astonishing sense of dignity in the face of all that is difficult, painful, uneven, disruptive, and all that middle-class society might consider sordid even. One can only applaud Rekha Bai for her courage, her sense of humour, her generous spirit and loving heart. One can only applaud and be grateful to her son for bringing her story—in her own words and voice—to us.