PUTTING IT ON RECORD – FROM DANCE HALLS OF INFAMY TO INDIA’S ROLL OF FAME
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May 7 2010
India
By IANS – Friday, May 7th, 2010 9:50 am They are the courtesans of a
bygone era who went on to become classical music legends and pioneered
the gramophone music industry. But these women, who played a radical
role in how Hindustani classical music evolved in the 19th and 20th
centuries in the Indian subcontinent, are also the first emancipators
who carved an independent identity in an era when women were trapped
behind the veil.
Gauhar Jaan, Jaddan Bai, Angurbala, and Kamla Jhar are just four of
the 500 women artists who recorded in different regional languages in
the first half of the 20th century. The trendsetters, who literally
gave women a voice to sing on stage, paved the way for modern soiree
artists and playback musicians in Bollywood, the Indian film industry.
They emerged from the alleys of courtesans’ colonies that dotted
historic eastern and heartland cities like Kolkata (Calcutta), Lucknow,
Allahabad and Delhi as well as Lahore, which went to Pakistan with
the partition of the subcontinent in 1947.
Their stories were as remarkable as the women themselves – like the
mother – daughter pair of Malka Jaan and Gauhar Jaan.
It started in 1873 when William Robert Yeoward, an Armenian Jew
employed as an engineer in a dry ice factory in the northern Indian
town of Azamgarh, married an Armenian woman Allen Victoria Hemming.
It was a bleak year for the East India Company in India with a famine
raging in Bihar, Bengal and neighbouring United Provinces.
Victoria’s life seemed woven to the chaos that the drought unleashed,
but destiny bailed her out, like the famine-hit who received timely
aid. Victoria’s marriage to Yeoward ended in a few years, in 1879
after the birth of daughter Angelina Yeoward.
Victoria’s training as a musician and dancer stood the mother and
daughter in good stead. She migrated to Benares in 1881 with a Muslim
nobleman, Khursheed, who appreciated her music.
Victoria converted to Islam and became Malka Jaan while daughter
Angelina was rechristened Gauhar Jaan. Courtesans by status, the
duo changed the course of history of Indian classical music – by
becoming pioneers of the gramophone music of India recorded on 78
rpm vinyl discs.
Gauhar could sing in 20 languages and regional dialects and served
as a court musician in Darbhanga and Rampur.
Most of the musicians of the era were women with social conscience.
They helped mould India’s tryst with freedom by actively taking
part in the struggle for Independence and raising money for the
revolutionaries.
Jaddan Bai was one such musician. Picked from a courtesan’s fair in
Benares in Uttar Pradesh and groomed as a nautch girl, she financially
helped the Left-leaning Progessive Writers’ Association in the first
decades of the freedom struggle.
Born a Hindu, Jaddan was raised as a Muslim. She trained under renowned
musicians and became a singing sensation. She founded the company,
Sangeet Movietone, while her daughter Nargis became a successful
movie star.
Imam Bandi of Lahore sheltered freedom fighters, while Lalita Bai of
Benares was known as Charkhewali Bai for ‘swadesi spirit’.
The women were feisty. Stories of daredevilry and passion were
galore in the opulent quarters – known as ‘kothas’ – of the
nautch-girls-turned-musicians. It was the stuff of romance and
folklore.
Courtesan Janaki Bai, born in Allahabad in 1889, was known for her
haunting voice and graceful dancing style. Bewitched by her dancing,
patron Raghunandan Dubey wanted her ‘exclusively to himself’. Janaki
Bai’s mother refused to part with her daughter. A jealous Dubey
stabbed Janaki 56 times in a fit of rage – earning her the moniker
‘Chappan Chauri (the girl with 56 wounds)’.
The women rendered several kinds of music like ‘dhrupad, dhamar, sadra,
khangal, tarana, sangam, geet, thumris and dadra’ – genres of classical
and semi-classical music – explained a visual documentary chronicling
the musical odyssey of women in the early 20th century recorded music.
‘Women On Record’ was shown recently in the Indian capital New Delhi.
The first lot of women musicians like Bai Sundera Bai, Angurbala,
Kamla Jharia, Indubala and Mumtaz were patronised by the gentry,
who hosted private soirees in their courts.
Angurbala was invited by the Nizam of Hyderabad to perform in his
court. Her photograph appeared with the nizam in the brochure of the
concert tour. Angurbala and Indubala later graduated to the screen.
‘Their voices sometimes surpassed their beauty,’ said actress Neena
Gupta, who anchored a scripted performance, ‘Inhi Logon Ne’, involving
narration, visuals and a concert to walk the audience through and
experience the era, the challenges faced by the women singers and
the diverse repertoires they brought to the Indian classical music.
The women – some of whom were astute traders – were pampered, canny
and influential.
‘At a time, when only viceroys were allowed buggies, Gauhar Jaan
drove her own buggy and paid a penalty for it every time she went out.
Jaddan Bai realised that a technological shift was under way in the
music world from public music to films and switched to movie music,’
Parthiv Shah, director for the Centre for Media and Alternative
Communication that co-hosted the exhibition, said.
The tradition of courtesan-turned-classical musicians or ‘kotha music’
was part of a greater-subcontinental culture bequeathed by the Mughals
to 16th century India. The emperors hired nautch girls to entertain
them in court.
While the heartland towns of India prided themselves on their
professional ‘dance halls’, in neighbouring Lahore, the art flourished
in Hira Mandi, the famous red light district of Lahore, whose history
is irrevocably linked to India.
Archival lore cites that Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab fell in
love with beautiful and intelligent courtesan-turned musican, Mooran,
from Lahore.
The Maharaja, it was said, was so overcome by her beauty that he
jumped into a pool to cool off after meeting her. The courtesan rose
to become the Maharaja’s wife and ‘advised him on key royal issues’.
In a fitting tribute, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s wife
Gurcharan Kaur, sums up: ‘We must always remain grateful to these
legendary performers and musicians who struggled so hard to help
classical music a new course and leave behind such a rich legacy.’
They are the courtesans of a bygone era who went on to become classical
music legends and pioneered the gramophone music industry.
But these women, who played a radical role in how Hindustani
classical music evolved in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Indian
subcontinent, are also the first emancipators who carved an independent
identity in an era when women were trapped behind the veil.