If you can whistle,you'll have a blast

Savitri Medhatul promises her debut documentary Natale Tumchayasaathi is an entertainer. She tells Tinaz Nooshian how the film on Sangeet Bari dancers turned out to be a lesson in survival, with killer tips on how to seduce a man in 15 minutes thrown in

Savitri Medhatul promises her debut documentary Natale Tumchayasaathi is an entertainer. She tells
Tinaz Nooshian how the film on Sangeet Bari dancers turned out to be a lesson in survival, with killer tips on how to seduce a man in 15 minutes thrown in

The racket that characterises one of Dadar's busiest junctions doesn't reach the old lady's ears, as she moulds besan laddoos in her palms, her wiry frame bent over a stainless steel thali.

The door is always ajar, leaving the doorbell feeling fairly useless. The sultry afternoon air is allowed to waft into the room, unplugged, just like a guest is, or someone looking for a neighbour.
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"Savitri? Tikdun ya (Looking for Savitri? Come around from the other end)," she says, guiding you down a row of rooms that line the square courtyard of the Shivaji Park chawl, a bunch of shiny tricycles parked under the shade of a lotus pink Navvari (nine-yard sari) that hangs from a clothesline.

The chatter with her fitness instructor friend, Abhijeet, in fluent Marathi, the ease with which she stirs up traditional Chingli fish curry (she says it must be popped in whole "unless you want to spend till tomorrow plucking out the hair-thin bones") and her middle-class Maharashtrian upbringing notwithstanding, Savitri Medhatul says spending a year with Maharashtra's Sangeet Bari dancers made her realise how little she knew about her community's folk culture. "It was like opening Pandora's Box.
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I heard alien dialects, ate food that tasted like nothing I'd been brought up on, saw a slice of life far removed from my urban upbringing," she admits.

Natale Tumchyasaathi, the 25 year-old's debut documentary made in collaboration with producer Bhushan Korgaonkar, tracks Sangeet Bari, a local folk dance tradition.
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Tamasha, a type of vaganatya that involves telling a story through dance, has hogged all the attention. And Lavani, the item song in the story, is the hot-seller.
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The lesser-known but evolved Sangeet Bari is performed in theatres that usually line Maharashtra's highways.
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Here, multiple dance troupes, called parties, perform every evening at a 3-hour long show.
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Every party gets its bari (turn) in the form of a 15-minute slot. "It's like window shopping. The all-male audience checks out mini performances, and picks a favourite for a private baithak.

Special A/C and non-A/C rooms are available for a group of men to watch the artists dance to songs they recommend. "Strangely, it's not a dying art. It's an evolving art.

From what was once restricted to singing, it grew to involve complicated dance moves, and now sees a heavy Bollywood influence.
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I've seen them perform to Dard-e-disco and Parbat ke us paar," smiles the Sophia Polytechnic media graduate.
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What sets Sangeet Bari apart from the mass-driven Tamasha is that patronage from Maratha sardars and Peshwas propelled it closer to high art; the lyrics are subtle, the choreography is intricate.
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"And the exploitation is far more rampant," Savitri adds, about the dancers who come from the Kolhati, Dombari and Kalwat community.
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"They aren't allowed to marry, but they can have a monogamous relationship with a patron or malak (owner); most of them local politicians.

Often, they are deserted by their malaks, even after bearing children. Their argument is weird. How can a married woman openly seduce male customers, they ask.
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And yet, these women haven't turned themselves into victims. They live for the love of dance, support families, and fight to free their daughters from the trap," she says.
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And so, it's not a "deep, dark docu because these women were far from radu (weeping willow), yaar!"
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Organising shoots at Aryabhushan Theatre and Sanaswadi in Pune, and Modnimb on the Pune-Solahpur highway were a challenge since the team wanted to catch the performers live, as the women recounted their experiences to form a first-person narrative.

Savitri is now friends with most of her protagonists.

Mohanabai Mahlengkar, who suspected that Bhushan and Savitri had eloped and were only pretending to make a film, offered to teach her flirting, and the art of holding a man's gaze.
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"Before a show started, she'd ask me to sit in row 1, promising to tease me with all that seduction. I had no choice but to sit there and blush!"
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If it wasn't tackling Mohanabai's "advances" with a straight face, Savitri had to work at restraining herself from jaw-dropping at the subtle but detailed sexual references that she heard about in Andhaaraatli Lavani (only performed in private).
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Her favourite is a song about menstruation. "She sings, 'Mazha shaalu nirit jhala (don't come close to me because the pleats of my sari are vermilion with blood)'.
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The dancer, who'd be chewing on paan at the time, would spit on her pleats, turning her white sari scarlet, right before the audience!" Sex, seduction, survival, love, pain and dreams are what make up Natale Tumchyasaathi.
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"If you can whistle, you'll have a blast," Savitri promises in an effort to tempt you into dropping in for the screening. As if we needed convincing.

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