Filmi Dialogue Tawaifs Adab and Tehzeeb..
Bete ke dhadhakte dil ke liye
hum hindusatan ki kismat nahi badal sakte
These were a filmi dialogues on a passing ricksha that I shot…
(Tanslated from Urdu it means ..
For the heart beats of a sons love I cannot change the destiny of Hindustan…
The son was Prince Salim the father Emperor Akbar in the film Moghul E Azam, the son was besotted by Anrakali a coourtean, or Tawaif, wanted to marry her and make her the Queen of his Heart and his Kingdom..)
Its a famous dialogue written in hindi on the rickshah, I craned and took the shot.The film was a yester year block buster Moghul E Azam..Emperor Akbars son Salim falls in love with a dancing girl or Tawaif , and is completely besotted by her wants to make her his wife , Emperor Akbar says to his Queen Jodha Bai, that he will not allow the thumping of a fickle Princes heart to change the destiny of India.. Hindustan.How can the future of the great Moghul Empire , be tied down in history with Ghungroos ..on the feet of a great country.
Women of such backgrounds were not part of the ruling hierarchy, many a kingdom was ruined by the love of a scion to the Tawaif.In Lucknow where Tawaifs were patronised by the reignning Nawabs of Avadh , this Tawaif culture was an Art Form.. of Tehzeeb and Adab, etiquette and culture.
Noble men sent their children to these Kothas , or to the Kothewalis to learn cuture ,etiqutte, deportment.. collectively known as Adab Tahzeeb…
Romance took place , a lot of Hindi pictures were made on this theme, illicit love of the nobleman and the courtesan..
Pakeezah a Kamal Amrohi film..
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam..A Guru Dutt Film..
Beautiful old time charm, old sets of Havelis, tantalising eternal lilting music…
Abhi Na Jao Chodkar Ke Dil Abhi Bhara Nahi…
Enhi logon ne …
Sheer cinematic nostalgia…
I lived in an extensin of the opulent house of the great thespian actor Late Nawab Kashmiri.. whose wife was from the royal family of Avadh, though Nawab Saab and his wife were dead, his mother in law Ammi.. the daughter in law of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.. was the head of the family.. that consisted of her grandchildren, Akthar Baji, Anwar and Munnawar..Anwar Bhai died sometime back,, he used to wear all kinds of scary masks give my paternal grandmother Khurshed Baji a very hard time..
We grew up as kids in their house, our room was their servants quarters given as rent to my migrant father from lucknow..it was no ordinary servants quarters.. 3 rooms.. all at Khatau Mansions Wode House Road, the otherside of the extension lived a very rich modern family Dossabhai Kanga his wife Gwendolyn their son Keith Kanga.. with his grandmother.. all dead and gone..
Keith Kanga was the pioneer of the Rock scene early 60s in Bombay.. he died unsung…unremembered by the very fraternity of musicians that he promoted .. in their hard days.Nandu Bhende, Neil Chatophadya, so many… just names ..
This was not part of my earlier post.,.. but Adab and Tehzeeb.. is what you transplant .. wherever you go and relocate…Nawab Saabs family let it rub off on us…though my mothers side of Daroga Nabban saab.. took its ancestry from Mir Anis..
Now back too my topic on Tawaifs..
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historically, a tawaif was a courtesan who catered to the Muslim nobility of South Asia, particularly during the Mughal era. They were skilled singers (North Indian classical music), dancers (usually Kathak), and poets (Urdu poetry). They were generally highly educated and refined. High-class tawaifs could often pick and choose between the best of their suitors.
The tawaif is celebrated in the Bollywood films Pakeezah (1972), Umrao Jaan (1981), and Devdas (2002
UMRAO JAAN
www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/umraojaan.html
Muzaffar Ali’s adaptation of the first great modern Urdu novel, Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Ruswa (1905), makes cinematic adjustments and compromises, but is a gem all the same. Whereas Ruswa interwove his fictional memoir of a 19th century tawayaf (courtesan or public woman) of Lucknow with a lively dialogic frame-narrative, in which the courtesan and author, both grown old, reminisce, tease one another, and quote copious ghazal poetry, the director presents a linear account of Umrao’s early life from childhood on, ending soon after the Rebellion of 1857 (a.k.a., the “Sepoy Mutiny”). Where the novel’s heroine is said to be plain, though blessed with a good voice and sharp mind, the film’s is…well, Rekha, here further endowed with the voice of Asha Bhosle singing ghazals that have all become famous. Where the literary Umrao admits to “never having really loved a man,” the cinematic Umrao has one great and lingering romance. The chronology of events is drastically altered as well, and of course a great deal is omitted. Nevertheless, Ali’s film is lovely in its own right, and apart from offering fine performances by renowned actors and gorgeous songs and dances, it succeeds remarkably well in capturing (through lovely cinematography and accurate period sets) much of the atmosphere of the novel, which both celebrates and problematizes the world of the chowk—the prostitute’s quarter of old Lucknow. It also conveys some of Ruswa’s surprisingly radical subtext: his meditation on the plight of upper-class women, whether begums (respectable but housebound wives) or tawayafs (alluring and educated but socially-disapproved courtesans), as birds equally caged by patriarchal double standards. It thus invites comparison with Kamal Amrohi’s PAKEEZAH (1971), which explores some of the same themes in a more allegorical register.
The setting is Lucknow, capital of the northeastern kingdom of Oudh (a.k.a. Awadh), which broke away from the crumbling Mughal Empire in the mid-eighteenth century. After the cultural and economic decline of Delhi, many poets and artists moved eastward, seeking the patronage of the heterodox Shi’ite Muslim rulers of Oudh. Their capital became renowned for the refinement and exaggerated elegance of its Persianized Urdu, as well as for the decadence of its lifestyle, which revolved around the Nawab’s court and the prostitutes’ chowk. The British East India Company’s forceful annexation of Oudh and deposition of its last king in 1856 helped to precipitate the outbreak, the following year, of widespread rebellion against their rule.
As the credits roll, we see the child Ameeran (Umme Farwa), a middle-class Muslim girl of Faizabad, being adorned, at roughly age twelve, for her engagement ceremony while women sing a traditional song. We soon learn that a neighbor of the family, Dilawar Khan, has a grudge against Ameeran’s father (whose testimony in a court case once sent him to prison); the vengeful Khan lures Ameeran from her house, then abducts her at knifepoint. Though he plans to kill her, a companion proposes instead taking her to Lucknow and selling her. After spending several days with a family who deal in stolen children, Ameeran and another frightened girl, Ram Dei, are both sold—the latter to a wealthy family (in the novel we learn that she is meant to be a sex-education toy for a young nawab or aristocrat). As the less attractive of the two, Ameeran is taken to Lucknow and sold to Madame Khanum (Shaukat Kaifi), the keeper of a high-class brothel where dandified gentlemen, wrapped in costly brocaded shawls and fortified by tobacco and opium, pass their evenings engaging in (for starters) witty conversation, musical recitals, and the chewing of paan (a mildly-addictive spiced betel preparation). But to the child, whom Khanum promptly renames Umrao and who understands nothing of the brothel’s commodity culture, it seems a magical and luxurious place, especially after her horrific ordeal. She has no hope of returning to her family (many days journey away) and is “adopted” by kindly Auntie Husaini (Dina Pathak), Khanum’s matronly servant.
Soon she begins her schooling in music, dance, and poetry—a world of art and learning that would have been barred to her had she remained with her family. As she and Khanum’s own daughter Bismillah practice their kathak dance, they are transformed into beautiful young women (Rekha and Prema Narayan). Umrao soon acquires an in-house paramour in the mischievous Gauhar Mirza (Naseeruddin Shah), the son of a prostitute and himself a sometime pimp. She also acquires a poetry teacher, Maulvi Saheb (Gajanan Jagirdar), who is also Hussaini’s lover. Once she begins performing (represented by the ghazal “Dil cheez kya hai” (“Never mind my heart, take my life”) she attracts the attention of a dashing and cultured young nawab, Sultan Sahab (Farouque Shaikh), who shares her taste for poetry. Several scenes are wonderfully evocative of the poetry-smitten world of 19th century Islamicate urban culture, in which all educated people were aspiring Urdu poets, and evenings were spent in mehfils or poetic gatherings at which a candle was passed around the room, and each person before whom it rested had to recite a poem, ideally of his own composition. The performances of ghazals attributed to Umrao Jaan (who composed under the pen-name “Ada”—“the flirtatious one”—which was artfully worked into the final or “signature” couplet of each poem) are likewise memorable (e.g., the haunting “In aankhon ki masti,” “The intoxication of these eyes”). Although Rekha lacks the grace of a classically-trained dancer, the music and opulent mise-en-scene (not to mention her intoxicating eyes) more than compensate.
Umrao’s romantic idyll with Nawab Sultan occupies much more of the film than it does of the novel, but in both it is repeatedly frustrated by a series of misfortunes that remind her of her status as a public woman who can never truly claim a man. These blows fall thick and fast after Intermission, and as a result the film gets a bit confusing. Frustrated in her love for Sultan (who is shortly to be married) and sick of her madam’s greed, Umrao decides to flee Khanum’s establishment with a darkly handsome admirer (Raj Babbar) who proves to be one Faiz Ali, a notorious daku or highwayman. When he is slain by rural police, Umrao makes her way to the commercial town of Kanpur and briefly (though in fact this compresses several years) sets up on her own, performing for the appreciative provincial gentry. This leads to an engagement at the home of a wealthy begum who proves to be none other than Ram Dei, the Hindu girl who was kidnapped and sold at the same time as Ameeran—by a quirk of fate, she has become the legal wife of a certain powerful Nawab. Discovered by Husaini and Gauhar Mirza, Umrao is brought back to her “home” in Lucknow, where Mirza (at Khanum’s urging, to prevent any future escape) harasses her with a lawsuit alleging that she married him. Just then the Rebellion breaks out, the British lay siege to Lucknow, and amid much confusion the denizens of the chowk escape the city. When the refugees pause overnight in Faizabad, Umrao again slips away from Khanum and eventually (more compression here) takes a flat in the very town in which she was born. Here too she receives invitations to perform in private homes, and the strange familiarity of one of these elicits the beautiful ghazal “Yeh kya jagah hai doston” (“What place is this, friends?”), that leads to a heartrending reunion.
Despite its uneven and sometimes confusing pace—familiarity with the novel (which is readily available in translation; see below), and with a bit of North Indian history certainly helps—this film gets high marks for its strong cast, beautifully written screenplay, and wonderful atmospherics. The exquisite locations never look like sets, and the shimmering costumes (of dazzling brocade and gauziest muslin) seem to be the work of master weavers. The beautiful songs are accompanied by traditional instruments (such as the plaintive-voiced sarangi) appropriate to the period. The director’s loving attention to visual detail is constantly evident, in carpets, hookahs, silver paan boxes, crystal lamps, and the Vermeer-like mirrors that confront the melancholy Umrao at every turn in her eventful journey.
April 21st, 2007
Filmi Dialogue Tawaifs Adab and Tehzeeb..
Bete ke dhadhakte dil ke liye
hum hindusatan ki kismat nahi badal sakte
These were a filmi dialogues on a passing ricksha that I shot…
(Tanslated from Urdu it means ..
For the heart beats of a sons love I cannot change the destiny of Hindustan…
The son was Prince Salim the father Emperor Akbar in the film Moghul E Azam, the son was besotted by Anrakali a coourtean, or Tawaif, wanted to marry her and make her the Queen of his Heart and his Kingdom..)
Its a famous dialogue written in hindi on the rickshah, I craned and took the shot.The film was a yester year block buster Moghul E Azam..Emperor Akbars son Salim falls in love with a dancing girl or Tawaif , and is completely besotted by her wants to make her his wife , Emperor Akbar says to his Queen Jodha Bai, that he will not allow the thumping of a fickle Princes heart to change the destiny of India.. Hindustan.How can the future of the great Moghul Empire , be tied down in history with Ghungroos ..on the feet of a great country.
Women of such backgrounds were not part of the ruling hierarchy, many a kingdom was ruined by the love of a scion to the Tawaif.In Lucknow where Tawaifs were patronised by the reignning Nawabs of Avadh , this Tawaif culture was an Art Form.. of Tehzeeb and Adab, etiquette and culture.
Noble men sent their children to these Kothas , or to the Kothewalis to learn cuture ,etiqutte, deportment.. collectively known as Adab Tahzeeb…
Romance took place , a lot of Hindi pictures were made on this theme, illicit love of the nobleman and the courtesan..
Pakeezah a Kamal Amrohi film..
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam..A Guru Dutt Film..
Beautiful old time charm, old sets of Havelis, tantalising eternal lilting music…
Abhi Na Jao Chodkar Ke Dil Abhi Bhara Nahi…
Enhi logon ne …
Sheer cinematic nostalgia…
I lived in an extensin of the opulent house of the great thespian actor Late Nawab Kashmiri.. whose wife was from the royal family of Avadh, though Nawab Saab and his wife were dead, his mother in law Ammi.. the daughter in law of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah.. was the head of the family.. that consisted of her grandchildren, Akthar Baji, Anwar and Munnawar..Anwar Bhai died sometime back,, he used to wear all kinds of scary masks give my paternal grandmother Khurshed Baji a very hard time..
We grew up as kids in their house, our room was their servants quarters given as rent to my migrant father from lucknow..it was no ordinary servants quarters.. 3 rooms.. all at Khatau Mansions Wode House Road, the otherside of the extension lived a very rich modern family Dossabhai Kanga his wife Gwendolyn their son Keith Kanga.. with his grandmother.. all dead and gone..
Keith Kanga was the pioneer of the Rock scene early 60s in Bombay.. he died unsung…unremembered by the very fraternity of musicians that he promoted .. in their hard days.Nandu Bhende, Neil Chatophadya, so many… just names ..
This was not part of my earlier post.,.. but Adab and Tehzeeb.. is what you transplant .. wherever you go and relocate…Nawab Saabs family let it rub off on us…though my mothers side of Daroga Nabban saab.. took its ancestry from Mir Anis..
Now back too my topic on Tawaifs..
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historically, a tawaif was a courtesan who catered to the Muslim nobility of South Asia, particularly during the Mughal era. They were skilled singers (North Indian classical music), dancers (usually Kathak), and poets (Urdu poetry). They were generally highly educated and refined. High-class tawaifs could often pick and choose between the best of their suitors.
The tawaif is celebrated in the Bollywood films Pakeezah (1972), Umrao Jaan (1981), and Devdas (2002
UMRAO JAAN
www.uiowa.edu/~incinema/umraojaan.html
Muzaffar Ali’s adaptation of the first great modern Urdu novel, Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Ruswa (1905), makes cinematic adjustments and compromises, but is a gem all the same. Whereas Ruswa interwove his fictional memoir of a 19th century tawayaf (courtesan or public woman) of Lucknow with a lively dialogic frame-narrative, in which the courtesan and author, both grown old, reminisce, tease one another, and quote copious ghazal poetry, the director presents a linear account of Umrao’s early life from childhood on, ending soon after the Rebellion of 1857 (a.k.a., the “Sepoy Mutiny”). Where the novel’s heroine is said to be plain, though blessed with a good voice and sharp mind, the film’s is…well, Rekha, here further endowed with the voice of Asha Bhosle singing ghazals that have all become famous. Where the literary Umrao admits to “never having really loved a man,” the cinematic Umrao has one great and lingering romance. The chronology of events is drastically altered as well, and of course a great deal is omitted. Nevertheless, Ali’s film is lovely in its own right, and apart from offering fine performances by renowned actors and gorgeous songs and dances, it succeeds remarkably well in capturing (through lovely cinematography and accurate period sets) much of the atmosphere of the novel, which both celebrates and problematizes the world of the chowk—the prostitute’s quarter of old Lucknow. It also conveys some of Ruswa’s surprisingly radical subtext: his meditation on the plight of upper-class women, whether begums (respectable but housebound wives) or tawayafs (alluring and educated but socially-disapproved courtesans), as birds equally caged by patriarchal double standards. It thus invites comparison with Kamal Amrohi’s PAKEEZAH (1971), which explores some of the same themes in a more allegorical register.
The setting is Lucknow, capital of the northeastern kingdom of Oudh (a.k.a. Awadh), which broke away from the crumbling Mughal Empire in the mid-eighteenth century. After the cultural and economic decline of Delhi, many poets and artists moved eastward, seeking the patronage of the heterodox Shi’ite Muslim rulers of Oudh. Their capital became renowned for the refinement and exaggerated elegance of its Persianized Urdu, as well as for the decadence of its lifestyle, which revolved around the Nawab’s court and the prostitutes’ chowk. The British East India Company’s forceful annexation of Oudh and deposition of its last king in 1856 helped to precipitate the outbreak, the following year, of widespread rebellion against their rule.
As the credits roll, we see the child Ameeran (Umme Farwa), a middle-class Muslim girl of Faizabad, being adorned, at roughly age twelve, for her engagement ceremony while women sing a traditional song. We soon learn that a neighbor of the family, Dilawar Khan, has a grudge against Ameeran’s father (whose testimony in a court case once sent him to prison); the vengeful Khan lures Ameeran from her house, then abducts her at knifepoint. Though he plans to kill her, a companion proposes instead taking her to Lucknow and selling her. After spending several days with a family who deal in stolen children, Ameeran and another frightened girl, Ram Dei, are both sold—the latter to a wealthy family (in the novel we learn that she is meant to be a sex-education toy for a young nawab or aristocrat). As the less attractive of the two, Ameeran is taken to Lucknow and sold to Madame Khanum (Shaukat Kaifi), the keeper of a high-class brothel where dandified gentlemen, wrapped in costly brocaded shawls and fortified by tobacco and opium, pass their evenings engaging in (for starters) witty conversation, musical recitals, and the chewing of paan (a mildly-addictive spiced betel preparation). But to the child, whom Khanum promptly renames Umrao and who understands nothing of the brothel’s commodity culture, it seems a magical and luxurious place, especially after her horrific ordeal. She has no hope of returning to her family (many days journey away) and is “adopted” by kindly Auntie Husaini (Dina Pathak), Khanum’s matronly servant.
Soon she begins her schooling in music, dance, and poetry—a world of art and learning that would have been barred to her had she remained with her family. As she and Khanum’s own daughter Bismillah practice their kathak dance, they are transformed into beautiful young women (Rekha and Prema Narayan). Umrao soon acquires an in-house paramour in the mischievous Gauhar Mirza (Naseeruddin Shah), the son of a prostitute and himself a sometime pimp. She also acquires a poetry teacher, Maulvi Saheb (Gajanan Jagirdar), who is also Hussaini’s lover. Once she begins performing (represented by the ghazal “Dil cheez kya hai” (“Never mind my heart, take my life”) she attracts the attention of a dashing and cultured young nawab, Sultan Sahab (Farouque Shaikh), who shares her taste for poetry. Several scenes are wonderfully evocative of the poetry-smitten world of 19th century Islamicate urban culture, in which all educated people were aspiring Urdu poets, and evenings were spent in mehfils or poetic gatherings at which a candle was passed around the room, and each person before whom it rested had to recite a poem, ideally of his own composition. The performances of ghazals attributed to Umrao Jaan (who composed under the pen-name “Ada”—“the flirtatious one”—which was artfully worked into the final or “signature” couplet of each poem) are likewise memorable (e.g., the haunting “In aankhon ki masti,” “The intoxication of these eyes”). Although Rekha lacks the grace of a classically-trained dancer, the music and opulent mise-en-scene (not to mention her intoxicating eyes) more than compensate.
Umrao’s romantic idyll with Nawab Sultan occupies much more of the film than it does of the novel, but in both it is repeatedly frustrated by a series of misfortunes that remind her of her status as a public woman who can never truly claim a man. These blows fall thick and fast after Intermission, and as a result the film gets a bit confusing. Frustrated in her love for Sultan (who is shortly to be married) and sick of her madam’s greed, Umrao decides to flee Khanum’s establishment with a darkly handsome admirer (Raj Babbar) who proves to be one Faiz Ali, a notorious daku or highwayman. When he is slain by rural police, Umrao makes her way to the commercial town of Kanpur and briefly (though in fact this compresses several years) sets up on her own, performing for the appreciative provincial gentry. This leads to an engagement at the home of a wealthy begum who proves to be none other than Ram Dei, the Hindu girl who was kidnapped and sold at the same time as Ameeran—by a quirk of fate, she has become the legal wife of a certain powerful Nawab. Discovered by Husaini and Gauhar Mirza, Umrao is brought back to her “home” in Lucknow, where Mirza (at Khanum’s urging, to prevent any future escape) harasses her with a lawsuit alleging that she married him. Just then the Rebellion breaks out, the British lay siege to Lucknow, and amid much confusion the denizens of the chowk escape the city. When the refugees pause overnight in Faizabad, Umrao again slips away from Khanum and eventually (more compression here) takes a flat in the very town in which she was born. Here too she receives invitations to perform in private homes, and the strange familiarity of one of these elicits the beautiful ghazal “Yeh kya jagah hai doston” (“What place is this, friends?”), that leads to a heartrending reunion.
Despite its uneven and sometimes confusing pace—familiarity with the novel (which is readily available in translation; see below), and with a bit of North Indian history certainly helps—this film gets high marks for its strong cast, beautifully written screenplay, and wonderful atmospherics. The exquisite locations never look like sets, and the shimmering costumes (of dazzling brocade and gauziest muslin) seem to be the work of master weavers. The beautiful songs are accompanied by traditional instruments (such as the plaintive-voiced sarangi) appropriate to the period. The director’s loving attention to visual detail is constantly evident, in carpets, hookahs, silver paan boxes, crystal lamps, and the Vermeer-like mirrors that confront the melancholy Umrao at every turn in her eventful journey.
April 21st, 2007