Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre

Perron, Lalita du

doi:10.4324/9780203968062

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…There are excellent publications, however, on each aspect of the mujra performance-tabla (Kippen, 2010), sarangi (Qureshi, 1997(Qureshi, , 2000, thumri (Du Perron, 2007;Manuel, 1989;Rao, 1990Rao, , 2006, ghazal (Qureshi, 1990) and Kathak (Chakravorty, 2008)-and they explore the historical context, the musical structure and, more recently, the aesthetic realm and performance practices. Most of these works comment very briefly on the lives of courtesans during the 20th century, possibly due to the paucity of research or the focus of their work on the history and development of the performing arts.…”

Section: Performance Of Mujra: Scant Scholarly Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contentious (Socio-spatial) Relations: Tawaifs and Congress House in Contemporary Bombay/Mumbai

Thatra

2016

Indian Journal of Gender Studies

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This article explores the lives of tawaifs, baijis or courtesans (the terms used interchangeably) in a contentious space marked by the location of Congress House in Bombay/Mumbai through the 20th century. The tawaifs' kothas are interestingly in the vicinity of Congress House, which was the hub of the Indian nationalist struggle from the 1930s onwards, the two sites coming into existence almost simultaneously and coexisting for many decades as this article demonstrates. However, there were various efforts during the last decades of 20th century to remove the presence of tawaifs from this neighbourhood, through the heightened interest of real-estate players in urban gentrification, and increased surveillance by the police and the citizens' forum. Given this contemporary situation, the attempt of this article is (i) to historicise the performance of mujra in Bombay and explore the contribution of courtesans to the enrichment of Hindustani 'classical' music and (ii) to spatialise the presence of tawaifs in the nationalist hub of Bombay and reflect on the Indian Journal of Gender Studies 23(2) 191-217 politics of their economic and cultural deprivation. This article, thus, reflects on the contested meanings of the space inhabited by the courtesans with its continued devaluing, disciplining and restructuring as well as the increased stigmatisation, criminalisation and marginalisation of the women. It also reads into newer modalities of regulation and the hegemonic processes of urban renewal.

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Section: Performance Of Mujra: Scant Scholarly Attentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contentious (Socio-spatial) Relations: Tawaifs and Congress House in Contemporary Bombay/Mumbai

Thatra

2016

Indian Journal of Gender Studies

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“…This essay considers the worlds of music-making invoked by these books through a case study of khemṭā. While music historians have examined the lyrical pasts of classical and semi-classical genres -especially dhrupad, khayāl, and ṭhumrī -lower-status forms have received less attention (Delvoye, 2010;Magriel and du Perron, 2013;du Perron, 2007). That said, scholars working with Bengali sources have demonstrated the wealth of social material embedded in street songs (see especially the work of Sumanta Banerjee and Anindita Ghosh); for Hindi-Urdu sources, on the other hand, Francesca Orsini has interrogated how the printed popular lyric can shed light on evolving modes of literary consumption and enjoyment (Banerjee, 1998a;Banerjee, 2002: 84-118;Ghosh, 2013;Orsini, 2009).…”

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confidence: 99%

Salacious Songs: Khemṭā Dance and Participatory Printed Media in Nineteenth-Century North India

Williams

2023

Int. J. Islam Asia

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Songbooks were an especially popular product in the colonial-era book industry of northern India. From cheap chapbooks to multi-volume tomes, collections of lyrics covered a range of tastes and genres, appealing to different social settings and performance practices. This article excavates the worlds of music-making invoked by these books through the case study of khemṭā. The khemṭā dancing girl was a low-status performer, associated with the playboy culture of early-nineteenth century Calcutta. Khemṭā lyrics were considered especially salacious and sensual, and the common view today is that the genre was geared towards titillation rather than artistry. Following the exile of Wajid ʿAli Shah of Awadh (r. 1847–1856) to Calcutta, this genre began to be choreographed and performed in the royal court, and the former king began to collect – and compose his own – khemṭā lyrics. By the late nineteenth century, khemṭā dancers were performing at fairs across northern India, and their verses were being compiled and printed in different scripts and languages. Khemṭā’s increasing popularity challenges the general impression of the late nineteenth century as a period of rising conservatism posed against “decadent” literary and musical forms. This view of the period presents an obstacle to making sense of the activities of Muslim lyricists, choreographers, dancers, and songbook editors. Countering this narrative, this article considers how khemṭā was printed, read, sung, and danced, and the modes of listening and arousal embedded in the printed song text.

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“…148 This might refer to the practice of addressing the king or leader of the assembly as the hero of the story (nāyaka), who could in turn be a god. Such practice was common for instance in the tradition of the Ṭhumrī, a courtly performance executed by highly skilled courtesans with songs and dance, accompanied by a musical ensemble (see Du Perron 2007). 149 This last part is reconstructed on the basis of kav.…”

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confidence: 99%

Theatre and Its Other

Ganser¹

2022

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Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Contentious (Socio-spatial) Relations: Tawaifs and Congress House in Contemporary Bombay/Mumbai

Contentious (Socio-spatial) Relations: Tawaifs and Congress House in Contemporary Bombay/Mumbai

Salacious Songs: Khemṭā Dance and Participatory Printed Media in Nineteenth-Century North India

Theatre and Its Other

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