An Archive of Urdu Feminist Fiction and Bombay's "Gaanewalis"

Author(s): SARAH WAHEED

Source: Economic and Political Weekly , MARCH 8, 2014, Vol. 49, No. 10 (MARCH 8,
2014), pp. 25-27
Published by: Economic and Political Weekly

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24479223

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 : COMMENTARY

REFERENCES
Cross, John C (2000): "Street Vendors, Modernity
Government of India, New Delhi, available
and
Bandopadhyay, Ritajyoti (2011): "A Critique ofPost
the Modernity: Conflict and Compromise
http://164.100.24.219/Bills Texts/LSBillTexts
National Policy on Urban Street Vendorsin theinGlobal Economy", International Journal
PassedLoksabha/t04C_2oi2_LS_Eng.pdf,
of Sociology and Social Policy, 20(1/2): cessed
India, 2009", available at https://casi.sas.up 30-52. on 24 February 2014.
enn. edu/iit/ bandopadhyay, accessed onof Housing and Urban Poverty
Ministry Alleviation
TWenty Third Report, Standing Committee on Urb
7 February 2013. Development (2012-13): "The Street Vendor
(2009) : "National Policy on Urban Street Vendors,
Bromley, Ray (2000): "Street Vending and 2009", Government of India, New Delhi,
Public avail
(Protection of Livelihood and Regulation
Policy: A Global Review", International able at http://mhupa.gov.in/policies/Street
Journal Street Vending) Bill, 2012", Lok Sabha Secr
of Sociology and Social Policy, 20(1/2): P0licy09.pdf,
1-29. accessed on 24 February 2014.
tariat, New Delhi, available at http://www
Bhowmik, Sharit (2010): "Introduction" The inStreet
SharitVendors (Protection of Livelihoodprsindia.org/uploads/media/Street%20Ven
and
Bhowmik (ed.), Street Vendors in the Regulation
Global of Street Vending) Bill,ers%2oBill/SCR%2oon%2oStreet%2oVen
2013 as
Economy (New Delhi: Routledge). passed by Lok Sabha on 6 September 2013,
dors%2oBill.pdf, accessed on 24 February 2014.

A η Arrh
An ivp nf I Triiii
Archive Fpminict born) milieu·As with Pr°gressive Urdu
/\I1 /\rcnive Uiof Urdu
uruu Feminist
remilllM writers such as Chughtai who wrote film
Fiction and
Fiction andBombay's
Bombay'sGaanewalis
Gaatiewalis
scripts, women entertainers migrated
to the cosmopolitan world of 1940's
Bombay cinema. The allusions of Dedh
Ishqiya successfully combine Urdu femi
sarah waheed nist fiction with a history of Mumbai's
SARAH WAHEED

studio culture.
The allusions
The allusionsofofthethe Hindi
Hindi Hamriatariyapeaajaresanwariya ]n ge(yh ishqiya, Urdu poets compete
Dekha dekht tanik huijaaye i ·,
film
film Dedh
Dedh Ishqiya
Ishqiyasuccessfully
successfully (Come to my balcony, oh beloved, Let there be
u· ttj c ■ ·.£.■.· some looking at one another) another in order to win the hand of the
combine
combine UrduUrdufeminist fiction
feminist fiction s n ... . _ „ ,, . Λ ,
- Begum Akhtar elegant Begum Para (M
with a history of Mumbai's
with a history of Mumbai's Nearly all the top.notch poets wrote th
studio
Studio culture. At its
culture. Atheart
its is
heart is type of poetry and a recitation of the
a plot
a plot line
line that
that is 72isyears
72 years
old old in Private and intiinate gatherings w
j , J , τ τ J , regarded as the best means of relaxing he
and based upon the Urdu short
and based upon the Urdu short lnd haong, good ii»«. And there ι w
story Lihâf about a homoerotic t^* "«»" <—> »
story Lihâf about a homoerotic
relationship between twoatwomen.
relationship between two women. home...if I were to write everything part of a larger plan hatched by the t
Theemergence
The emergence of a female
of a female tbat respectable ladies listen to and narrate women. This plot line catches the
. , , j r , y j · with 8reat relish, only God knows what ence unawares, because the female duo
voice in the heyday of the Indian
voice m the heyday of the Indian people would do t0 me Broached in private, hyacks a film narrative that is initially
nationalist
nationalist movement - both
movement - both all this was regarded as light literature ^ m motion ^ endeari itinerant
r. ,. r. . but if brought out in the open, people held , , . . _ . rl .
in terms of its commodification
in terms of its commodihcation their noses in disgust like virtuou
through
throughradio and other new
radio and other new But how have those who profess to b
j. 11 t-B h standard bearers of revolution come to and
media as well as through
me 13 as we as roug terms with this mentality? I was unable
collective
collective political assertions by
political assertions by to find an answer, which made my he
feminist
feminist critics
critics - is narrated anew - is narrated anew finitely sad. and a t
- Ismat Chughtai ( Bombay Se Bhopal Tak )
within
within Dedh
Dedh Ishqiya. Ishqiya. tbat tbe true beroes °'the are hero
'tis not every day that a historian gets ines. Freed from constraints

I! to see an archive announce itself and social obligations dictate

.upon the silver screen. At the heart desires, the film ends with B
of the recent film Dedh Ishqiya (2014) is a and Muniya successfully t
plot line that is 72 years old: it is based heist in their favour, starting
upon the Urdu short story Lihâf (The together - using the funds f
Quilt) about a homoerotic relationship ding dowry/faked kidna
between two women. It was so radical stolen necklace to establish their own
for its times that Ismat Chughtai (1915-91) dance studio and school. This fictional
was nearly imprisoned for writing it. ending of Dedh Ishqiya resembles the life
Sarah Waheed {sarah.f.waheed@gmail.com) Rhythmically interwoven with this tale history of personages such as Jaddanbai
is a historian who specialises in islam in south is another: that of a professional class (1892-1949)1 who belonged to a class of
Asia, nationalist politics in colonial India and of female entertainers affiliated with women performers and had established
postcolonial India and Pakistan. She currently the north Indian Urdu-speaking nawàbi a film studio and company of her own
teaches at oberhn College, the US. (aristocratic) and sharlf (noble or high in Bombay.
Economic & Political weekly BQ23 march 8, 2014 vol xlix no 10 25

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COMMENTARY :

As the credits roll towards the end of in Dedh Ishqiya, Chughtai wrote of a urdu zubân from the histor
the film, Begum Para performs "Hamri woman in a predicament almost identical feminist fiction.
Atariya Pe Aaja Re Sawariya", a thumri to Begum Para's: a woman falls ill Lihâf heralded a new g
also sung by the famous Begum Akhtar after being neglected by a husband who educated middle- and upper
(1914-74). Her ghazal, "Wohjo hum mein prefers the company of young boys to women in colonial north I
turn mein qarar tha" also features in the his wife; her "cure" comes from an inti- of age and adjusting to
film, in scenes which pan across a record mate relationship with a devoted maid brought about by the Qu
player to the nostalgia embodied within servant. The short story has been widely ment, second world war an
the conversations of Iftekhar and Begum republished and has become one of Depression. At a time when a
Para. Akhtar was formerly known as Chughtai's signature works, a hallmark social hierarchies were being
Akhtari Bai Faizabadi; she had changed of a unique writing style that combines and overturned amid the I
her name upon marriage into a "respect- begamati zubân with details of domestic alist movement, women
able" upper-middle class family, for the life in the zenana (a secluded section of visible in public: in political
term bai in colloquial Urdu had come to the house for women). Chughtai was art, music and literature. A
insinuate links with prostitution. Dedh declaring the right to write about the Muslim women was lea
Ishqiya reinvents the "Muslim courte- female body by provocatively discussing beginning with Atiya Fyzee,
san/dancing girl" archetype of Bombay its claims to pleasure and fulfilment for feminists such as Rasheed J
cinema. Instead of the pathos of film a public readership. Ismat Chughtai, and Wajida Tabassum
narratives such as Pakeezah (1972), Um- It was successfully argued in court were pushing the boundaries of s
rao Jaan (1981), and Bazaar (1982) that Lihâf made no clear reference to expression in Urdu. Their work engag
where women of dubious sexual stand- sexual activity, even though the story reflexively with modernity as an ong
ing outside the marital order must face remains one of the most suggestive ing project in their own lives and in th
life alone bereft of love, Dedh Ishqiya depictions of homoeroticism in modern lives of their communities as well as
ends by celebrating homosocial spaces Indian fiction.1 In the penultimate pas- Indian nation,
of female friendship. sage of the story, the narrator exclaims:
It is ultimately the women in Dedh "Allah! I dove headlong into the sheets of Singing and Dancing Ladies
Ishqiya who have the last laugh. After my bed! What I saw when the quilt was Dedh Ishqiya also alludes to the life
having faked their own kidnapping, lifted, I will never tell anyone, not even histories of female entertainers from the
Muniya and Begum Para tie up Khalu-jaan if they give me a lakh of rupees!"2 In 1930s and 1940s associated with the
and Babban; as the women's shadows Dedh Ishqiya, the words lihâf mângle, elite feudal Urdu-speaking Indo-Muslim
play against the wall, in a scene remi- then, take on new meaning as they milieu. Begum Para's story also rese
niscent of Lihâf, Khalu-jaan remarks: emerge amid the backdrop of Muniya bles that of Begum Akhtar's, Malika-e
"lihâf mangle?" (Shall we ask for a quilt?) and Begum Para's shadows while they Ghazal: she gives up dancing upon he
That the words are uttered by actor laugh and playfully amuse one another, marriage to the nawab, just as Begum
Naseeruddin Shah is not surprising, Lihâf is a cultural artefact, embedded Akhtar once gave up singing after m
since Shah has taken a keen interest in within the larger narrative of Dedh rying a barrister. Begum Akhtar was not
the life of Chughtai, staging plays such Ishqiya; it is certainly not a film whose permitted to sing for five years, and a
as Manto Ismat Hazir Hain, and reviving principal subject matter is same-sex a result, she fell ill; she recovered only
the works of once banned authors for love, such as Deepa Mehta's controver- after she resumed singing in 1949, whe
popular audiences. sial English film Fire (1996). Nor does she returned to the recording studios to
Dedh Isqhiya describe the two women's perform ghazals for a Lucknow radio
Ismat Chughtai and Lihâf relationship in terms of lack, as in station. Begum Akhtar was not born
In 1942, Chughtai was summoned to Fire, i e, "there is no word in our into a musical family, but she was class
court in Lahore and tried for obscenity, language for us", but inscribes the cally trained by Ustad Imdad Khan, Ata
for Lihâf and won. Chughtai shocked relationship in terms of fulfilment. As Muhammad Khan and others, and her
readers with her bold tale: Lihâf was Begum Para explains in a tone well- successful career included singing an
about the sequestered lives of women suited for reciting rekhti ghazal (an ex- acting in Bombay's nascent film industry
within an ashrâf (elite) household, nar- tant genre of 18th century Urdu poetry in Ameena (1934), Mumtaz Begum (1934)
rated from the perspective of a young girl about love between women), "She and Jawaani Ka Nasha (1935). In Ded
who describes the sensual relationship (Muniya) had become my confidante, Ishqiya, it is Iftekhar - himself a former
between her aunt and her maidservant, my friend, everything to me." Thus, tabla player - who convinces Begum
The child is frightened by the shadows Dedh Ishqiya approaches and portrays Para to resume dancing, after a heated
on the wall that she sees at night moving women's intimate worlds and same-sex argument which leads Begum Para to
about while she is sleeping next to them, love with subtlety, through a plot line turn off the Begum Akhtar record; the
Set in the north Indian sharif milieu, about a heist, and by accessing existing links between the two - symbolised by
much like the setting of Mahmudabad literary narratives of hindustani or the gift of a necklace, are the resu
26 ,2014 vol xlix no 10 CEE3 Economic & Political weekly

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 : COMMENTARY

of their exposure to the same musical entertainer to Bombay cinema, such as Dedh Ishqiya is an inter-text
gharana (specialist schools of music) of Shyam Benegal's Bhumika (1977) and tive, as its characters and plot
their adolescence. Sardari Begum (1996). There is even metonymically for a whole history of
As professional, public women, the one example of this transition in the Urdu cultural realms in Bombay. As
status of the early female singers of song Jab Nam-e-Mohabbat Leke in Kala Ranjani Mazumdar has argued, film can
Bombay cinema was nebulous: on the Pani (1958) where the musical score be read as the "archive of a city"-that in
one hand, they were glamorised for their seems to be composed of two different the traffic between the "real" city and
talent, but on the other, they were songs, dividing one other as the screen the represented cinematic city, Bombay's
viewed with moral disdain. Singing, as shifts between two women: the courtesan cinema provides access to a range of
a profession for women, had become and the cabaret dancer. The register of urban subjectivities.4 The female voices
tainted in increasingly conservative the music moves unevenly and abruptly that emerged during the Independence
middle-class social circles, given its as- between an old-world courtesan who movement-whether they were asserted
sociation with courtesan culture. The sings in a slow metre and tempo about in controversial fiction, mass commer
term, "tawa'if ', which once described a remembering a lost past, to a speeded cialised through radio and cinema, or
class of women entertainers - or even a up version of the song in which her presented in courtrooms - are narrated
hereditary matrilineal line of musicians cabaret counterpart sings of forgetting anew within Dedh Ishqiya. That such a
- had come to mean "prostitute". In the the past and living in the moment. multilayered story appears on screens
early 20th century, urban middle-class Dedh Ishqiya's plot not only brings to amid recent politicisation in India over
reform movements alongside the anti- life the stories of Indo-Muslim women the issues of same-sex love as well as
nautch movement which drove prosti- entertainers from Bombay's film studio women's autonomy, mobility, and free
tutes out of their cities of origin also era but also resembles another archival dom from sexual violence, makes Dedh
affeccted the status of elite female document: the Bawla murder case of Ishiqya all the more relevant,
entertainers. Many moved to princely 1925 which involved kidnapping and
states, before entering Bombay cinema, had enthralled Bombay's newspapers for notes
NOTES

Gaanewalis who were patronised by the months. In the penultimate shoot-out 1 Lihsf was was
Lihâf not written withwith
not written the purpose of cele
the purpose of cele
brating lesbian relationships. Ismat Chughtai
courts of princely kingdoms had their scene of Dedh Ishqiya, the local gangster bratmg
r J ° 00 argued that the story was about
lesbian
the
argued that
relationships.
sickness
the story
Ismat Chughtai
was about the "sickness"
credentials as entertainers legitimised Jan
which occurs in theMohammad
households of respectable
families, where women are neglected by their
due to their association with "classical stop at nothing
husbands and By
Γ or husbands and kept secluded. kepttoday
secluded.s By today's
culture", before they moved on to lucra- of nawab
standards, such a of
view Mahmudabad
of homosexuality and
homoeroticism is retrogressive, but in Chughtai's
tive careers in theatre, radio, and film, kidnap Begum Para and re
time,
time, the the
subject
subject
was not even
was open
notto public
eve
By the 1930s and 1940s, many gaanewalis, honour. Armed
discussion. See with
Ismat: Her Life, pistols
Her Times, Sukrita
Paul Kumar and
such as Suraiya, Jaddanbai, Zohra Bai, weapons, Sadique
Jan fed.) (Delhi: Katha
Mohammad
Book),
Book), 2000; See also
2000; Kaghazi
See also Hai Pairahan,
Kaghazi
and Amirbai Karnataki - women who entourage of gangsters
Trans. Tahira Naqvi in Annual ofto the
Urdu t
Studies,
Vol 15, 2000,
either had links to musical gharanas, or where he ρ 437. Ismat Chughtai
nearly writes: "In
succeeds
reality
reality no one
noever
onetold
ever
me that
told
writing
meont
whose mothers may have been gaane- Begum Para
the subject I dealback to isMahmu
with in Lihaf a sin, nor did
I ever
walis themselves - filled Bombay's film not read anywhere
before she that I shouldn't
and Muniy write
. , _ , aboutthis...disease...ortendency".
about this...disease...or tendency".
studios. Although some gaanewalis a get-away car. The outcome of the Bawla 2 Ismat chughtai,
Ismat Chughtai, LihafAurDigarA
Lihaf Aur Digar Afsane (Delhi:
married into middle-class families, their murder case turned out to be
Saqimore
Book Saqi Book
Depot), Depot), 2002.
2002.
Mukul Kesavan, "Urdu, Awadh, and the Tawaif :
position in respectable society was at tragic. It involved one Mumtaz the
Begum, a 3
Islamicate Roots of Hindi Cinema" in Zoya
times tenuous. Attacks came from the Muslim dancer who, for a decade, had(ed.),
Hasan Hasan (ed.),Identities:
Forging Forging identities:
Gender, ComG
munities and the State, Kali for Women, 1994.
highest quarters: in 1946, Sardar Patel been the mistress of a maharaja of munities and the State, Kali for Wo
4 Ranjani
RanjaniMazumdar,
Mazumdar,Bombay Cinema:
Bombay Archive
Cinema: of of
Archive
banned women entertainers whose Indore; she had grown tired of life thein theCity City (Minneapolis:
(Minneapolis: University
University of
of Minnesota
Press),and
private lives were a public scandal" from a gilded cage, left the durbar, 2007. ulti- Press), 2007.

singing on All India Radio. mately became the mistress of Abdul

This uneven transition, from salon/ Kadar Bawla, a wealthy industrialist
Permission for Reproduction of
court to stage to studio became the in Bombay. As evidence from the case Articles Published in EPW
subject of Urdu literature as well as revealed, Bawla was murdered after
Bombay films. It was a narrative which the princely patron conspired to trackNo article published in epw or part thereof

should be reproduced in any form without

bespoke an uneasy modernity. Narratives down Mumtaz Begum and to get
prior
about the demi-monde class of courtesans her back at any cost: his men followed permission of the author(s).

and gaanewalis encapsulate an entire the couple up to Malabar Hill, andA soft/hard copy of the author(s)'s approval
should be sent to epw.
genre of films, testifying to the continued tried to kidnap her, leaving her scarred;
urge to situate an old Mughal culture Bawla, who came to her defence,In cases where the email address of the
within the body of the destitute woman.3 was shot and killed. Mumtaz Begum
author has not been published along with
At times, Hindi-Urdu films have narrated was hounded by the press long after
the articles, epw can be contacted for help.
the transition from the classically trained the trial.

Economic & Political weekly 0X3 march 8, 2014 vol xux no to 27

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