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The comparison came naturally to me. Like the Geisha in Kyoto, the world of tawaif in Lucknow is as complex and hierarchal as the society of which it is a part. In those days when even most women of good families owned nothing in terms of property in their names, these women were among the highest tax payers. Britons with their shrewd sense of business while controlling the activities of these women by legislation and otherwise did not hesitate in imposing tax on them. These tawaifs at the time of annexation of Awadh owned considerable income from the landed properties mostly received as gifts from their benefactors. Much like the Geisha of Kyoto and their okiyas these tawaifs functioned from Kothas (loosely translate as salons /pleasure houses) owned by Chaudharains who were veteran tawaifs of their own times. In a departure to the general belief these women (geisha and tawaifs ) were not prostitutes. Abdul Halim Sharar considered tawaifs as the channel through which the morals, manners and distinctiveness of Lucknow culture and society was sustained. They were not only preserver and performers of the high culture of the court but also actively shaped the developments in Hindustani music and Kathak dance style. They commanded great respect in the courts and in society and association with them bestowed prestige on those who were invited to their salons for cultural soirees. Even the young sons of nobility were sent to them for instruction in etiquettes, the art of conversation and polite manners, and appreciation of Urdu literature. They were the artists and entertainers for noble society- till the British arrived on the scene and change the society and its fabric forever. ( Much like as fate of geisha after Japan lost the war with Americans) Many of the tawaifs could not find the patrons to survive and turned to prostitution. Some other chose a life of anonymity and poverty.
Contrary to the conventional perspective of this profession historian Veena Talwar in a famous essay on the life of these courtesans argued that these women, even today are independent and consciously involved in the covert subversion of a male dominated world; they celebrate their womanhood in the privacy of their apartments by resisting and inverting the rules of gender of the larger society of which they are a part.
In the book of Arthur Golden, I found a vivid description of the rigorous training of a geisha and a great deal has been said and written (e.g in Mirza Ruswa’s novel Umrao Zaan Ada) about the education and training of the tawaifs. Besides the dancing and singing , poetry and playing instruments , calligraphy and conversation – both sets of entertainers of Japan and India are skilled in the art of Nakhra- pretense, which they have to master in order to spare no opportunity of coaxing money out of their admirers . These well practiced ploys,,- some learned, some invented, some even improvised were so much a part of their lives that even their Bollywood avatars cannot but copy those. The spontaneity of these ploys to attract attention made several otherwise worldly men lose a fortune in a moment . This may sound more like self enrichment than style but in a society which has virtually denied women control over wealth and property, perhaps it was a kind of countercultural way of life.
I try not to judge them with my contemporary morality and values. I visualize them ( much like the Witch of Portobello) as women who faced the life with courage and managed to sail through the current of society and horrors of their past lives – sometimes with relative happiness and sometimes with a resigned disinterest .