‘Ganika’ | Were the nautch girls of British India the original influencers?

In the lushly produced espresso desk e-book Ganika: In the Visual Culture of the Nineteenth-Twentieth Century India, edited by artwork historian and curator Seema Bhalla, the world of courtesans involves life. Over eight essays, together with two by Bhalla herself, the e-book marks the journey of courtesans from the custom of the devadasi to their illustration in publish independence well-liked tradition, via depictions in work, pictures, movies and use of textiles and equipment. Beyond the boundaries of up to date discourse on courtesans, the e-book stitches a textured account of their lives and cultural affect, dispelling myths and bringing their artistry into focus.

It started with Devi

The central motivation for the e-book, says Bhalla, was to supply a extra truthful narrative that’s not reductive and displays the actuality of the varied roles they performed in society over time and the footprint they left behind. “While curating an exhibition titled Devi a few years ago, based on Siddhartha Tagore’s art collection, I realised that women are categorised too easily in society. It played heavily on my mind. I wanted to go back in history and see if women were always treated like this?” A clip from the 1966 historic Hindi movie Amrapali, directed by Lekh Tandon and starring Sunil Dutt and Vyjayanthimala in the lead was used as a loop in that exhibition. In the movie, a king refers to a courtesan Amrapali as ‘Devi’, or goddess. It revealed to Bhalla that there was far more than met the eye, difficult our collective understanding of their cultural legacy.

Seema Bhalla

Then got here the exhibition Ganika: In the Visual Culture of Nineteenth-Twentieth Century India, based mostly on one other assortment owned by Tagore, which was displayed at the National Crafts Museum in New Delhi in late 2022. “When I was curating that exhibition, it was clear to me that it had taken a scholarly turn. I decided it deserves a book,” says Bhalla. Every piece of artwork and pictures in the e-book was half of the original exhibition, however the e-book was designed as a standalone work.

Hand-held pankhis, a favoured accent, from National Crafts Museum & Hastkala Academy’s assortment

On matchbox covers and cigarette packs

Among the contributors are students Ira Bhaskar, Richard Allen, Swarnamalya Ganesh, Shweta Sachdev Jha, Yatindra Mishra, Sumant Batra and AK Das, who discover varied dimensions of courtesans’ lives, from artwork and trend to bop, music and cinema, contextualised towards a backdrop of colonial and postcolonial India. The e-book’s thematic chapters dive into courtesans’ roles not simply as entertainers however as cultural and creative trend-setters of their time. Some chapters reveal the intersection of artwork and commerce and the way courtesans influenced not simply Indian, however international tradition.

Indian baizees, present playing cards inserted in cigarette bins (Nineteenth century, lithograph)

In ‘Nautch Girls: in the Visual Culture of Advertisement’, Bhalla attracts our consideration to eye-catching pictures of courtesans adorning matchbox covers and cigarette packs made in international locations akin to Austria and Sweden, produced for Indian markets. Many such fascinating connections between courtesans and well-liked tradition have been forgotten. “Sadly, the ‘Nautch Girls’ of the British era, the Baijis of Bengal, the Naikins of Goa, the Tawaifs of the north, and the Devdasis of the south did not receive a spot of deserving acclaim,” writes Tagore in the e-book.

Singer-actor Begum Akhtar
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy Yatindra Mishra

The actual Heeramandi

In the title essay, Bhalla notes the transition of courtesans from temple dancers to stigmatised figures, diluting their many abilities. “Ironically, it is also during British times that the terminology of ‘Nautch Girls’ came into existence. A misrepresentation of the Urdu word, ‘Naach’ became the anglicised ‘Nautch’. Slowly, the ‘dancing girls’, now labelled as nautch girls, became outcasts and the tradition of classical dance that started in temples and reached the courts, was [performed] on the streets,” writes Bhalla. Some depictions, notably in cinema, have distorted their legacy, too.

Meena Kumari in Pakeezah

With tv exhibits, akin to Heeramandi, helmed by filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, have we managed a deeper understanding of their lives? “Such depictions are larger than life and full of grandeur. Much of it is fiction. For example, the palatial sets of Heeramandi are nothing like the original bazaar that I have visited where the houses are actually tiny,” says Bhalla.

But what shouldn’t be fiction is that these ladies had been the “original influencers” in trend, music, and even perfumery, Bhalla says. If she’d like readers to remove one factor from the e-book, it’s that whereas every chapter delves into a special facet of their lives via a particular lens, all of it comes collectively to construct a full image, a complete persona. One that spotlights not simply the trajectory of the ladies, however the evolving society that was formed by them in some ways.

The author is an writer and freelance journalist based mostly in Delhi.