I had been visiting Benaras since 2002 to conduct research for a film that would document the journey of the tawaif, or courtesan, within the cultural, social and political landscape of late 19th- and 20th-century North India. It was an uphill task – the history of the arts in India, and especially music is largely based on oral narratives and material traces, and these, when it comes to tawaif artistes, are even more fragmentary since this community has always stood on the margins of society.
Benaras was home to a large community of tawaifs till the mid-20th century. It was also the centre of an exclusive musical style of bol banao thumri and its associative light classical forms, such as the hori, chaiti, kajari and dadra, practised and preserved almost exclusively by women from courtesan backgrounds. The city continues to have a self-image of being a centre of Hindustani classical music, validated no doubt by the presence of well-known male musicians, patrons, music schools and music societies. It has, however, long since been deserted by tawaif singers and the music that once echoed in their kothas, salons. So where does the courtesan live in the city's memory? At musical mehfils (gatherings) hosted by wealthy merchants and at concerts held on the ghats of the Ganga, I received the same answer: the tawaif is dead, she sings no more those beguiling melodies that made men forget their way back home.
Other custodians of memories had been more forthcoming. Guided by them I was able to map the city of Benaras from the late 19th to early 20th century when tawaifs had occupied quite literally the central space, the Chowk, the main square of the old city of Benaras, and its adjoining localities, Dal Mandi, Nariyal Bazaar and Raja Darwaaza. Many tawaifs owned property in these areas, and their kothas were resplendent with elegant furniture and gilded mirrors. Attracting wealthy patrons as well as musicians and members of the literati, these kothas were vibrant musical and cultural institutions.
A 'devouring' sexuality
As self-made women, tawaifs had to cultivate a range of skills that included, besides music and dance, ilme majlisi, or knowledge of the intricacies of social etiquette, as well as grounding in literature, politics and the arts of erotic stimulation. Their patrons came from the ruling elite – the king, the merchant aristocracy and the gosains or priests who controlled the resources of temples. Tawaifs were invited to perform at the court, at family celebrations in merchants' homes, in prominent temples and on the ghats on important religious occasions. They sang of ecstatic passion, pangs of separation, sexual longing, jealousy and anger that imbue the poetry of thumri, and its associated forms.