In a recent photo exhibition featuring images shot by legendary lensman JH Thakkar, of superstars from the Bombay film industry’s golden era (50s-60s), there was a significant section on Nargis. While the curator eulogised the actress’s unconventional good looks as well as acting prowess, her background was curiously whitewashed. Nargis was launched in the Hindi film industry after being primed to cut into the legendary fame of Suraiya. Stylists and producers ensured her clothes, looks and movie roles gave her ample scope to stand out as a modern, urban young icon who would influence young adults mesmerised by what they witnessed on the silver screen.
Funnily, in the curator’s note, Nargis’s mother, Jaddanbai was presented as a noted musician and film producer. Clearly, they couldn’t mention the stark reality. Jaddanbai was a famous courtesan before she stepped into the film industry to cleanse her image. The process of celebrating, glorifying or glamourising courtesans therefore had been present from the early days itself and these were not divorced from the art of sanitizing the reality.
Because, in post-partition India, most of the heroines given work in films were Muslim girls whose ancestors were courtesans in the northern part of undivided Bharat. Stripped off their source of income in their previous occupation, they were forced to search for economic avenues in tinsel town.
If Nargis was the most recognisable example, there was Ameeta (her actual name was Qamar Sultana and she played the lead actress in Tumsa Nahi Dekha) who was the daughter of a very famous tawaif in Lucknow called Wahidan. Actress Nimmi’s mother was a known courtesan from Agra. This increased propensity of the industry to include daughters of erstwhile courtesans could also be the reason why filmmakers, scriptwriters and music directors always had a soft spot for the tawaif culture. It was almost a dogged effort to brainwash the audience so that they stop associating the courtesans and their progeny with a system made to exploit women and start believing that it was some grand, regal relic from the Mughal zamaana.
Earlier when information wasn’t readily available, the Hindi film industry got away with sugar-coated lies. But now, with ample evidence in public sphere about the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ of the courtesan culture and what brought about its degeneration, nothing can justify the boring regularity with which movie makers continue peddling the subject wrapped in their supposed poetic vision of grandeur, art and aesthetics other than a deluded initiative to distort Bharatiya history.
If we map the evolution of female performers and courtesan culture in India, a threadbare discussion would bring under the ambit Devadasis, Nagarvadhus and eventually the Tawaif era (rise as well as downfall in the form of the anti-nautch movement launched by the British in the early 20th century). While women who performed here have seen highs and lows of various kinds, with respect to their status in society, one thing remained constant. They had to know the art of entertaining such as classical music and dance. If we consider only tawaifs (whose direct derivative was the Hindi film industry post independence), female entertainers had classes of performance; the highest being a tawaif, who was also given the title of Jaan (Umrao Jaan, Gauhar Jaan, etc) when they were young. The older performers were called Baiji (Jaddanbai, Wahidanbai, etc).
They were proficient in Hindustani classical music which was an imperative for the trade. Those who managed this status well by marrying their managers lived better lives and their daughters became the founding pillars of Hindi cinema. Crude flesh trade was not that common in these premium categories but since the earners were women and they were single with men coming in to hear them in private ceremonies they faced a variety of social malaise. They also commercialised music, which was Saraswati swaroop in Bharat, and Hindi film music was influenced by this.
However, rigorous documentation proves a new girl was certainly brought in against her wish. Remember how Amiran was abducted from her family and forced to become Umrao Jaan? These young girls could not become tawaifs immediately and needed training in music and dance so that they could regale their male audience with mujra. However, what they never got was true love. The isolation, desperation found expression in poetry that many of these tawaifs wrote in the fancy havelis they were caged in. Where they dolled up every night to appease their ‘momentary lovers’ while spending their days in ignominy from the judgemental eyes of an Islamic society that birthed this culture to fan the aiyyashi of landed gentry.
Keeping this background firmly in mind, let us delve into the amusing nature of the overt romanticisation of the tawaif culture by the Hindi film industry that lacks nuance and depth required to deal with such a complex, multi-layered topic. While no one is denying that the wronged women deserve empathy while discussing the exploitation they went through to serve the selfish needs of men in the Islamic community, filmmakers in Mumbai instead of critiquing it unabashedly, have always glorified it through the tinted glasses of decadent chandeliers in those decrepit kothaas. The recent cases being Gangubai Kathiawadi, where people drunk on Bollywood propaganda fell for the whitewashed narrative and applauded the trafficker who transacted with goons. That brings us to Heeramandi, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s latest work.
The name is derived from Pakistan’s biggest red-light area in Lahore. While we don’t know whether the narrative will focus on that particular place (also called Shahi Mohallah. How ironic that a den of prostitution is given this royal tag) this is again an attempt to charm the audience about the tawaif culture (last done in Kalank)! If Urdu prettified the system that exploited women (no wonder the Hindi film industry used the language so much so that it got ingrained in the audience’s mind), there will always be those agenda-based filmmakers who will present Heeramandi as one of the last bastions where Muslim aristocrats went for entertainment and feast on decked up prey, accompanied by musical paraphernalia.
The Hindi film industry has been celebrating wrong things for years. Bhansali, known for dishing out distorted excesses, will project Heeramandi with an artistic tint of nostalgia. After all, the cabal has a strange fascination for Islam and Pakistan! They won’t reform and project that Heeramandi in the 17th-18th century, operated as a full-blown human trafficking nexus that would abduct small girls from rural areas in the UP-Bihar belt. These innocent, and mostly Hindu girls would be kidnapped, sold and converted before being trained to become professional singers, dancers and sex workers. In Bengal the Nawab’s men would forcibly pick up any Hindu woman they fancied including ones from well-to-do families. Jagat Seth’s daughter went through this horror, which led the father to finance the fall of Siraj-ud-Daulah.
Fashion designers who craft the clothes for works such as Kalank, Gangubai or Heeramandi also channel their energies in presenting a tawaif look filled with opulence and grandiose so that they can market this as the trending bridal look for Indian brides during the wedding season. While designing the costumes of Heeramandi fashion designers Rimple and Harpreet Narula surely kept in mind this aspect of endorsement for the next wedding season.
Imagine the number of Indian brides who will be inspired to replicate this get up that has no bindi and other markers of a Sanatani wedding (leave aside the shunting of local weaves and crafts in such themed weddings). If this is not a subliminal module to rapidly Islamise thought processes by exalting a red-light area, what is! No wonder, in Bollywood parlance, it still is convenient to depict courtesans as ‘queens’!
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