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The deewane of Hindustani music
Updated On: 08 March, 2020 12:00 AM IST | | Jane Borges
Writer-scholar Tejaswini Niranjana-s new book delves into the musical madness that gripped Bombay in the 19th century. And the devadasis and tawaifs have a lot to be thanked for
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The new image of the "naikin and tawaif"�a contemporary take on the original 20th century postcard picture�was prepared for Tejaswini Niranjanas 2015 exhibition Making Music-Making Space. It has the women turning away from each other, suspended
An early 20th-century postcard, photographed in Bombay and printed in Luxembourg, now part of the colonial circulation of images of Indians, shows two women standing sideways, facing each other, "exchanging notes". One, in her short kameez-churidar and an arm akimbo, while the other, wrapped in a sari, wearing a nath and huge bindi on her small, round face. "I imagine them to be a devadasi or naikin [the latter] and a tawaif. I also imagine that they lived near Kennedy Bridge in the Grant Road-Lamington Road area, where so many from their communities made a home in Bombay," says author and academician Tejaswini Niranjana.
The naikin from Goa in western India and the tawaif from northern India are part of the influx of performers into the city-s entertainment industry from the 1860s onwards. Both, says Niranjana, had an intimate connection to Hindustani music. They also played an instrumental role in perpetuating their art in Bombay city, giving rise to a musicophilia that caught the collective imagination of its residents.
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