Tag: theatre

Chandra, Moti. The World of Courtesans. Vikas, 1973.

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In this book, Moti Chandra compiles an enormity of information about ancient Indian courtesans organized into certain periods/locations and their literatures. By the sheer number of places and locations, Chandra’s book resists a singular or one-dimensional reading of the life of ancient Indian courtesans.

From the Preface

“The institution of courtesans in ancient India in its social setting has not yet received as much attention from scholars as it deserves. Courtesans in ancient India did not merely serve the baser needs of society but were also a symbol of culture and ars amoris. Around them moved interesting characters such as rich merchants, bankers, and the vitas (rakes). In this way a courtesan became an important part of Indian society. So far as literature is concerned, courtesans, in spite of their perfidies, were considered an urban institution which gave an impetus to arts and the life of luxury….

The institution of courtesans is a distinguished feature of developed urban society and, therefore, in Vedic and post-Vedic literature, though the courtesans are mentioned casually, we hardly know much about their life and accomplishments. In Buddhist literature, however, we are face to face with the highly developed institution of courtesans…. In Jain literature as well, courtesans have received attention and their achievements have been noted…. In the Mauryan period, however, the organization of the courtesans became highly complex and the state devised a set of rules which governed their conduct….

However, the best account of courtesans is obtained in the Kamasutra of Vatsyayana which goes into great details in drawing a very correct picture of the institutions of courtesans, the clients who visited them, the low characters who either helped the courtesans and their clients and hangers on, their amusements, the picnic parties to which they proceeded with their lovers, periodic festivals in which they participated, their acts of piety and virtue and vices.”

 

Critiques

Although this work is very thoroughly researched and informative, The World of Courtesans is not without its biases. In “Re-Inscribing the Indian Courtesan: A Genealogical Approach” (see our citation and download the .pdf here), Meenal Tula and Rekhal Pande observe that Chandra speaks of courtesans’ sexuality in a demeaning and even anxious way. They argue that in doing so, The World of Courtesans “contains, disciplines, and ‘silences the courtesan subject,'” common features of scholarship on the devadasis. Consider the following quote:

“Moti Chandra, in his study The World of Courtesans (first published in 1976), attempts to provide a compilation of the various kinds of roles played by the courtesan women since the Vedic period. He talks about their sexual, ritual and sacred roles and, citing various sources, catalogues the various terms that have been employed for the courtesans over the ages—ganika, khumbhadasi—and the hierarchies between these various terms. At the same time, the book is framed by a narrative that sees courtesans as women who ‘served the baser needs of society but were also a symbol of culture and arsamoris.’  At the same time, while Moti Chandra sees these women as morally base and ‘living the life of shame’, he nonetheless reveals a deep anxiety towards the ‘crafty’ and ‘worldly-wise’ ways of these women: ‘…courtesans tempt(ed) their lovers, perhaps depriving the rich Aryans of a part of their possessions in cattle and gold.’ Further, Chandra seeks to configure the courtesan women primarily according to their sexual function, seeing it as the sole aspect that ‘explains’ all dimensions of the courtesan, sexual, cultural and political. In this sense, Moti Chandra’s history of the courtesan women does not explore the complexities of the inter-relationships between these women and the extant patriarchal structures, even though it is a ‘women’s history’.”

 

Table of Contents

  1. Courtesans in Vedic, Pauranic, and Smiti Literatures
  2. Courtesans in Buddhist Literature
  3. Courtesans in Jain Literature
  4. Courtesans in the Mauryan Period
  5. Courtesans in the Kamasutra and Natyasastra
  6. Courtesans in the Gupta Period
  7. Courtesans and Goshthi in Sanskrit Drama
  8. Courtesans in Mediaeval Kashmir
  9. Courtesans in Mediaevil Times in Other Parts of India
  10. Courtesans in South India

Dattani, Mahesh. Dance Like a Man: A Stage Play in Two Acts. Penguin, 2006.

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Jairaj Parekh and his wife Ratna, aging Bharatnatyam dancers, live together in the home of Jairaj’s father, Amritlal. Having retired from an unfulfilling career, Jairaj and Ratna project their hopes for higher achievement onto their daughter, Lata, also a dancer. Generational conflicts abound: Lata attempts to balance her parents’ ambitions with her desire to marry her boyfriend, Viswas; meanwhile, Jairaj and Ratna struggle to work through their longstanding conflict with Amritlal, once a nationalist activist and now a conservative reactionary, who views dancing as the work of prostitutes and whose rigid views of manhood are constantly challenged by his artistic, expressive son. A movie based on the play was released in 2014.

While devadasis are not protagonists in this play, they are nevertheless thematically central: pre-Indian independence, Bharatanatyam was largely performed by devadasis, but the devadasi practice was shamed and outlawed during the Indian nationalist movement as an effort to appeal to colonial conceptions of gender and civility.  (Indeed, Amritlal forbids Jairaj from learning dance from a local Devadasi.) This careful exclusion and suppression of female public performers and their associated traits informs much of Amritlal’s character, and by extension, much of the play’s conflict.

 

Consider the following questions:

  • Amritlal, once an activist for the cause of freeing India from British occupation, nevertheless enforces strict binary gender roles. Do these seemingly-contradictory political stances mean Amritlal used to be progressive and is now conservative? Can he be both at one time?
  • To what degree can Amritlal be forgiven for his sexism if sexism helped to achieve India’s independence? Similarly, to what degree should women and other marginalized groups be expected to bear oppression in the name of progress? Can progress ever be simple, linear, and teleological?
  • In presenting Bharatanatyam as a worthy art form for all genders and non-devadasi dancers, does the narrative appear to validate the devadasi practice, devadasis themselves, and/or devadasis’ artistic skills? Alternatively, is the dance form separated from the devadasis? What assumptions are made about devadasis, if any?

 

De Bruin, Hanne M. “Naming a Theatre in Tamil Nadu.” Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 17, no. 1, 2000, pp. 98–122

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In this article, Hanne M. de Bruin examines the issues surrounding the name for the folk theatre of Tamil Nadu, India — usually known as terukkuttu (one of several possible spellings), but which some now prefer to call kattaikkuttu. De Bruin’s position as a theatre researcher not only gives her firsthand insights based on her own participation in the debate but, as she notes, also clouds the issues because of her status as a foreign scholar. In her essay, De Bruin closely examines the sociopolitical ramifications of the naming problem.

Mitra, Royona. “Living a Body Myth, Performing a Body Reality: Reclaiming the Corporeality and Sexuality of the Indian Female Dancer.” Feminist Review, no. 84, 2006, pp. 67-83

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From the introduction: “This paper investigates the dilemma that has been projected upon Indian female dancers’ bodies by contemporary Indian audiences when female desire occupies the centrality of a performance and projects the female body as sexual, articulate and independent of the discipline and propriety of classicism. Locating this dilemma in the nationalist construction of Indian womanhood and femininity as ‘chaste’, this paper adopts Victor Turner’s notions of liminal and liminoid phenomenon and Brechtian defamiliarization technique as a feminist strategy to construct a framework within which the contemporary Indian dancer can reclaim her sexuality in performance. To investigate the complex nationalist trope of chaste Indian womanhood, and to analyse the subversion of this trope by placing agency on the female body as sexual, I locate my argument in the discussion of The Silk Route: Memory of a Journey by Kinaetma Theatre, UK, which was performed in Kolkata in August 2004.”

Bhatia, Nandi. “The Courtesan as ‘Virangana’ in Contemporary Historical Drama: Tripurari Sharmas San Sattavan ka Qissa; Azizun Nisa.” Performing Women/Performing womanhood. Theatre, Politics, and Dissent in North India. Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 100-115.

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In this article, Bhatia examines the erasure of courtesans in Indian historical drama, focusing on dramatic depictions of the 1857 mutiny and contrasting the attention afforded to women such as the Rani of Jhansi and dalit viranganas (war heroines) with the relative invisibility of courtesan figures, arguing that “the courtesan faces neglect from both elite and subaltern reconstructions of the female heroes of 1857.” Bhatia goes on to examine Tripurari Sharma’s play, San Sattavan ka Qissa: Azizun Nisa, which explores the role of Azizun Nisa, a courtesan and prominent combatant in the 1857 mutiny; by placing the focus on the courtesan figure, Sharma challenges and complicates the dominant narratives and myths surrounding 1857, alongside nationalist constructions of femininity.