tawaifs (The tawaifs were women who moved from the Kotha and formed the part of the Parsi theater and then subsequently were the first women performers for the big Hindi Film Industry.)
According to Manjari, this 90-minute production is a medium to draw the attention of society toward the erstwhile courtesans and how discriminatory practices impacted not only their lives but also their families.
“It’s more than a decade of my work. It was started to give respect to the tawaifs of India because, in the history of performing arts, the tawaifs are a name that shouldn’t be taken. Their names were very conveniently removed from history even though their performance was a considered as a sophisticated art form years ago. So with this, we want to give them their respectful place in history,” shares Manjari, adding that the idea was inspired by a woman she met in Lucknow who is one of the last living tawaifs.
For this performance, Manjari has restored the art performed by the courtesans in their time while also recreating the compositions that they performed. The concert incorporates dance by Manjari and theatrical story-telling performances by actor Neesha Singh where she narrates in English, stories, and anecdotes from the lives and the times of the tawaifs and the courtesans.
“All the research that I did for this, I put them as small capsules of stories. What we know of tawaifs is from Bollywood. They are portrayed as vamps, who are there to steal men, and only exist for sexual purposes. That’s the image that they have created. What is often missed is that they were performers of their time. How they have perfected their art is what should be discussed and not their affairs and personal lives. Unfortunately, those are the stories that survived.”
Having performed it in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, Manjari is bringing the production for the first time to Bangalore this Friday.
“While I’m entertaining, it’s also about bringing social change where we are trying to bring the women in the history of performing arts at par with men and not as second-rate artists anymore,” she adds.