Informed by the following text, create a dance that depicts the transformation of a downtrodden widow in mourning to a woman empowered by taking charge of her life as a dancing courtesan. Incorporate a long veil or chuni as a prop that depicts the woman's hair into the dance as well as some sort of rhythmic element that builds to a climax at some point during the exploration. You do not have to incorporate any of the text but you may choose to.
Shy:
quotes from courtesans in the 70s from Veena Talwar Oldenbrg in her article "Lifestyle as Resistance: The case of the courtesans of Lucknow, India"
1. Story of young widow running away to join the courtesans:
"I was married when I was ten. My natal family was Rajput, my father and uncles owned fifty acres of irrigated land; my mother did not have to work too hard because we had two servants who did most of the household work. I had attended three years of school but I barely knew how to recognize the letters that spell my name. My gauna ceremony occurred just three months after menarche. I remember being taken to my husband's house with my dowry and plenty of gifts for my in-laws. My father sent several sacks of wheat, sugar, lentils, and other produce from the farm because I was married to a young Rajput boy whose father had gambled away most of their wealth. That summer [I960] there was a very big flood, which washed away the mud huts in the village, the livestock, and our food reserves. While my husband was out with his brothers trying to salvage some of the food stored in earthenware jars, he slipped and fell into the water and three days later was dead after a severe bout of cholera. I survived but I often wished I were dead. The local Brahmin said that my ill-starred presence had brought flood and death to the village. My jewels, clothes, and the few silver coins which I had hidden away were all forcibly taken away from me, and I became a widow in white who did all the nasty, heavy chores for the household. I was fed scraps when I cried out in hunger. You talk about the laws that were passed by the British to prevent child marriage, you talk of the rights we won when the Hindu Civil Code [I956] was passed but I sneer at all that. I had no recourse to the laws, or to lawyers, only to my wits sharpened by adversity. I first tried to get back at them with sly acts of sabotage. I did the washing up indifferently, leaving a dull film on the metal platters and the pots. For this my mother-in-law thrashed me. I would sneak into the kitchen when my sister-in-law had finished cooking and add a heavy dose of salt to the lentils and vegetables. I would hide my smile when I heard the yells and abuse heaped on her by the menfolk. She caught me one day and thrashed me soundly until I howled with pain. Her husband came home and gave me another hiding. Life was unbearable but I was trapped; there was nowhere that I could go. My parents, who had come
for the funeral to our village, were distressed but they did not offer to take me back because they still had my younger sisters to marry. Fights, violence erupted all the time. My sister-in-law kept wishing me dead. When it was discovered that I stole money, to buy snacks from the vendor, they threatened
to burn me alive. I wanted to run away but didn't know where I would go, except to the river to drown myself. Finally when an itinerant troupe of entertainers was encamped in our village I saw the performance and thought I would secretly apply to work for them, just do their housework or something. They agreed to shelter me after I told them my troubles and showed them the bruises on my body. They smuggled me out of that hell, gave me bit parts in their dramas, and finally brought me to the lap of Bibi Khanum [another tawa'ifl in Lucknow, and I have never looked back. I had no option but to run away. Tell me, sister, what would you have done in my place?"
Shy:
quotes from courtesans in the 70s from Veena Talwar Oldenbrg in her article "Lifestyle as Resistance: The case of the courtesans of Lucknow, India"
1. Story of young widow running away to join the courtesans:
"I was married when I was ten. My natal family was Rajput, my father and uncles owned fifty acres of irrigated land; my mother did not have to work too hard because we had two servants who did most of the household work. I had attended three years of school but I barely knew how to recognize the letters that spell my name. My gauna ceremony occurred just three months after menarche. I remember being taken to my husband's house with my dowry and plenty of gifts for my in-laws. My father sent several sacks of wheat, sugar, lentils, and other produce from the farm because I was married to a young Rajput boy whose father had gambled away most of their wealth. That summer [I960] there was a very big flood, which washed away the mud huts in the village, the livestock, and our food reserves. While my husband was out with his brothers trying to salvage some of the food stored in earthenware jars, he slipped and fell into the water and three days later was dead after a severe bout of cholera. I survived but I often wished I were dead. The local Brahmin said that my ill-starred presence had brought flood and death to the village. My jewels, clothes, and the few silver coins which I had hidden away were all forcibly taken away from me, and I became a widow in white who did all the nasty, heavy chores for the household. I was fed scraps when I cried out in hunger. You talk about the laws that were passed by the British to prevent child marriage, you talk of the rights we won when the Hindu Civil Code [I956] was passed but I sneer at all that. I had no recourse to the laws, or to lawyers, only to my wits sharpened by adversity. I first tried to get back at them with sly acts of sabotage. I did the washing up indifferently, leaving a dull film on the metal platters and the pots. For this my mother-in-law thrashed me. I would sneak into the kitchen when my sister-in-law had finished cooking and add a heavy dose of salt to the lentils and vegetables. I would hide my smile when I heard the yells and abuse heaped on her by the menfolk. She caught me one day and thrashed me soundly until I howled with pain. Her husband came home and gave me another hiding. Life was unbearable but I was trapped; there was nowhere that I could go. My parents, who had come
for the funeral to our village, were distressed but they did not offer to take me back because they still had my younger sisters to marry. Fights, violence erupted all the time. My sister-in-law kept wishing me dead. When it was discovered that I stole money, to buy snacks from the vendor, they threatened
to burn me alive. I wanted to run away but didn't know where I would go, except to the river to drown myself. Finally when an itinerant troupe of entertainers was encamped in our village I saw the performance and thought I would secretly apply to work for them, just do their housework or something. They agreed to shelter me after I told them my troubles and showed them the bruises on my body. They smuggled me out of that hell, gave me bit parts in their dramas, and finally brought me to the lap of Bibi Khanum [another tawa'ifl in Lucknow, and I have never looked back. I had no option but to run away. Tell me, sister, what would you have done in my place?"
I have my doubts about the following bit:"You talk about the laws that were passed by the British to prevent child marriage, you talk of the rights we won when the Hindu Civil Code
ReplyDelete[I9561was passed but I sneer at all that." If this is a direct quote from her work, Ms. Oldenburg injects an appreciation and even approval of British attempts to govern India which are unlikely to have been any part of a young Rajput woman's thinking in the 70's. More likely, these sre Ms. Oldenburg's own views and at best, this enlarges on a much simpler response to Ms. Oldenburg's questions based on assumptions she was herself inculcated with.
Hi Zade,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! Yes, in her article Veena Oldenburg quotes Rasulan Bai directly. As in all ethnographic research, it is quite probable, as you point out, that her lens deeply influenced the sort of information she obtained. However, my sense is not that the overall tone of her article is pro-British. She prefaces Rasulan Bai's story as follows:
"The story of one of the Hindu child widows, Rasulan Ba'i, thirty-five, is especially compelling, because it exposes the ineffectiveness of the social reform legislation passed in the last 150 years and the lack of options for young widows even today."
The main critique I have heard from some about Oldenburg's article is that it over-romanticizes the tawaifs as proto-feminists resisting patriarchy. Check out the article for yourself if you are curious: Feminist Studies 16, no. 2 (Summer 1990). It's an interesting read.