Wednesday 28 November 2012

MAKING A WOMAN FROM A TAWAIF

In the Hindi film, Kismat,2 the film’s heroine (Muni) has been rescued by the
film’s hero (Moti) from the clutches of the villains and from their plans to
force her into a life as a courtesan. Having been in their control, however,
and having been forced to dance in public as a courtesan, Muni sees her
situation as hopeless: ‘The world can turn a woman into a courtesan, but a
courtesan can never become a woman.’ The Urdu word, tawaif, which I have
translated as courtesan, is defined in at least one Urdu dictionary as “dancing
girl, a prostitute; a female singer.” Like Indian society of the past (and Indian
films of the present), this definition conflates a woman’s professional
engagement as a performing artist and as a prostitute. The generic noun,
woman, is used here to mean “respectable woman,” one who, in the
conventions of the Hindi cinema is sexually, socially and economically
definable in terms of her relationship to one or more respectable males. In
the eyes of “respectable” society (represented most clearly in this film by
Moti’s aunt, who rejects Muni because of her tawaif-identity), Moti’s actions,
however noble, are futile. Having been labelled tawaif, Muni can no longer
hope for respectability; a happy ending—defined in the conventions of the
Hindi cinema as the union of the heroine with the film’s hero—is no longer
possible.
Muni’s distinction between women and tawaifs is actually a distinction
between the female character who, in the dictates of convention, is a
respectable heroine (and therefore marriageable) and one who is a tawaif (and
therefore not). Since marriage (actual or implied) to the film’s hero by the

1

Gregory D. Booth (g.booth@auckland.ac.nz) is senior lecturer in ethnomusicology at the
University of Auckland.
2
I have chosen to spell the names of Hindi films following, as consistently as possible, the
spellings found on the commercial releases of these films. Many of the titles referred to in
this study will be available under these spellings at the many Hindi film rental outlets to
be found in most major cities.

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