Sharanya Vairam

The documentary film ‘The Other Song’ directed by Saba Dewan is an effort to look at history and the erasures that have happened overtime in the name of nationalism, respectability and culture, how women and their contributions to the field of music like every other field has been consciously erased out of memory and history or at least marginalised and delegitimised. She is going in search of a lost song of Rasoolan Bai’s rendition of Bhairavi Thumri, “lagat karajwa mein chot” and its variant “ lagat jobanwa mein chot” and to understand through interviewing other thumri singers why was/could there have been this difference in Rasoolan Bai’s rendition of the song. Historically, women have been an important part of India’s rich traditions of dance and music, be it Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Thumri, Carnatic music, Ghazal, etc. and their contributions to these fields have been immense. Sometimes they are also viewed as the originators of some of these traditions. But overtime their contributions have been invisiblised and marginalised. Like it has been pointed out the traditions of Ghazal, Mujra, Thumri, Kathak, etc. originated from the Mughal Darbars and the tawaifs’ Kothas where the tawaifs/courtesans/dancing and singing girls would perform for the gathering (which mostly consisted of men). Later the Thumri artists would perform in the dance salons, festivities and occasions, and in the courts of other Princes for an audience of men and women. These singing and dancing girls, especially the tawaifs were literate at a time when only women from upper caste-class were exposed to education. These women mostly belonged to families with a poor socio-economic background and additionally, many were Muslims (or took up a Muslim identity), a minority religion in the Indian context. Their songs borrowed heavily from their embodied experiences as well as from their socio-economic background. They also sang about sexuality and desire. Their compositions had pain and grief, sometimes of poverty and vulnerability, sometimes of the love and sometimes of the violence that came with love. Their songs also changed with the audience, the occasion and their own age and situation. The songs were mostly addressed to Krishna but as one of the singers mention in the film, every man present in the mehfil had to be made to feel like he is the Krishna being addressed to. The rendition had to be sensuous and expressive, every man had to feel like the singer was his Gopi appealing to him to let go, to not be cruel in love and to not tease her emotions.