Dancing With the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema

Description

Indian cinema is the only body of world cinema that depicts courtesans as important characters. In early films courtesan characters transmitted Indian classical dance, music and aesthetics to large audiences. They represent the nation's past, tracing their heritage to the fourth-century Kamasutra and to nineteenth-century courtly cultures, but they are also the first group of modern women in Hindi films. They are working professionals living on their own or in matrilineal families. Like male protagonists, they travel widely and develop networks of friends and chosen kin. They have relations with men outside marriage and become single mothers. Courtesan films are heroine-oriented and almost every major female actor has played this role. Challenging received wisdom, Vanita demonstrates that a larger number of courtesans in Bombay cinema are Hindu and indeterminate than are Muslim, and that films depict their culture as hybrid Hindu-Muslim, not Islamicate. Courtesans speak in the ambiguous voice of the modern nation, inviting spectators to seize pleasure here and now but also to search for the meaning of life. Vanita's groundbreaking study of courtesans and courtesan imagery in 235 films brings fresh evidence to show that the courtesan figure shapes the modern Indian erotic, political and religious imagination. Review This is a spectacular reassessment of India's cinematic courtesans; it provocatively challenges reigning stereotypes concerning gendered and ideological collectives. If offers new insights into the interface between canonical texts and performance, between art and labor. -- Syed Akbar Hyder * Associate Professor of Asian Studies and the Director of the Hindi-Urdu Flagship at the University of Texas at Austin. Author of Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory. * About the Author Ruth Vanita taught at Delhi University, India, for many years, and is now Professor at the University of Montana, USA. Co-founder of India's first nationwide feminist magazine Manushi, Vanita is the author of many books and articles on gender, sexuality and culture in Indian and British literature, and has translated several works of poetry and fiction from Hindi/Urdu to English. Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Page Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Both Hindu and Muslim Female Sexuality Gender Men History Aesthetics Terminology Models for Urban Women Nationalism and Feminism Stigmatized Desires Dancing with the Nation Chapter 1: Family Marriage not the End Matrilineal Families Maternal Uncle Maternal Aunt Chosen Families Neighbourhood and Community Cooking, Eating, Feeding Ambiguous Relationships Everyday Life Wife and Tawaif Co-Wives and Co-Mothers Widows without being Wives Chapter 2: Eros Imagining the Courtesan Coming Out Erotic Defiance Female Agency, Male Passivity Courtesan Eroticism, Conjugal Eroticism Glamour Hedonism Shringara or Self-Adornment Courtesan-like Sequences Courtesan-like Modern Woman Shape-Shifters Traditional and Modern Free and Paid Erotic Dancing Ghosts and Doubles Homoerotic Doubling Sadomasochism and Foot Fetish Aestheticized Sensuality Chapter 3: Work Choice and Agency Education and Training A Lost Aesthetic Conversation as Work Dance Money Sex Work Property On the Move Career and Fame Ageing and Retirement Status Other Performing Women Hijras as Colleagues Chapter 4: Male Allies The Music Teacher (Ustad) Male Poet: 1950s and 1960s Male Poet as Saviour: 1970s and 1980s The Sympathetic Client The Musical Admirer Long-term Lovers Driven Mad Androgynous Sex Appeal Dacoits and Thieves Chaoter 5: Nation Selective Depictions Princely States Class, Caste, Community Landed Gentry: Thakurs and Nawabs Reading Courtesans of Antiquity Citizens and Philosophers: Ancient India Mughal India Matriliny and National Lineage Courtesan, Family and Motherland The New Draupadi Chapter 6: Religion ‘Islamicate’ or Hybrid? Hindu, Muslim and Indian Religious Markers Devotion Philosophical Debate Saraswati and Lakshmi Ever Pure: Ganga Durga: Easy to Reach Goddesses Incarnate Dargah and Temple Symbols Anti-Hindu Satire Renouncing the World Mystical Love Caged Soul Courtesans and the Divine On Life’s Journey Conclusion: The Courtesan Film as a Genre Alphabetical List of Films Non-Bombay Films Chronological List of Films Non-Bombay Films Glossary Index