‘When gandharva—a celestial musician sings…'¹

This article is an ode to the practice of female impersonation in the musical imagination of Sangeet Natak (Music-Drama, 1880s - 1930s). An artful form of entertainment, that is arguably known to celebrate gender fluidity and transgression as a part of refined and dignified taste, is evident in its wider popularity and appreciation of the craft of the stree party (female impersonator) in Maharashtra. My curiosity lies in the complexity of the desire for femininity and its (re)configuration and transmediation through a musical code, developed by all male troupes of the theater companies, which forms a homosocial premise in a predominantly caste patriarchal commercial theatre.

The phenomenon of the star heroines of the Marathi stage is the site of my curiosity. It’s a nostalgic presence felt today in the musicality played on various archival records and experienced by anonymous groups of listeners spread across timelines. The music of Sangeet Manapaman (1911) presented by Kirloskar Natak Mandali is known for a different kind of music making in the history of Sangeet Natak. Bhamini is the female protagonist played by the female impersonator, actor-singer—Narayan Shripad Rajhans famously known as Bal Gandharva (1888-1967). The play is largely attributed to the star heroine status of Bal Gandharva. It is a romantic comedy, a five act play written by the noted playwright Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar (1872-1948) in 1910 with music composed by Govindrao Tembe (1881-1955). The song in discussion is one out of eighteen songs for the heroines’ character out of a total of 57 songs in the entire play. 

Act Three, Location: Bhamini’s Palace
Ripon Theatre, 12 March 1911, Bombay

Bhamini (played by Bal Gandharva) is expressing her state of mind to her friend Kusum (played by Sadubhau Ranade) that unsettles her modesty caused by the valorous hero Dhairyadhar (played by Nanasaheb Joglekar), who remarks, ‘more appealing when you were draping it’ in response to her coy concern ‘now does it suit better?’ after she changes from a green to a black shalu (a silk sari woven in Banaras for special occasions) when asked to do so by her love interest.  

Her imagination is clouded by the images of love for Dhairyadhar. Images that appear in swapnamandirat—literally in the temple of her dreams. She is unable to figure out the tickle of this sudden embarrassment and the advancement of the ‘joke’. She protests by not speaking to her lover.

She sings,

'nahi mi bolat, naatha' (I am not speaking to you, my lord)
'winayheen wadata naatha' (disrespectful you speak, my lord)

The song in progress here is a musical response to the heroine’s distorted state of mind, a situation that is making her indecisive. It is based on a tune. The natya padas (phrases) written by the playwright (Khadilkar) are based on the tunes selected by the music composer (Tembe). The lyric and emotive are calibrated to the notations based on a close attention to the speed and possibilities of elaborations within the tunes of the selected genre of songs.

The function of Gandharva's song is to convincingly emote all that she (Bhamini) does not want to speak. The design of her song stresses on the first line of the phrase along with the repetitive utterance of naatha in the singing. For instance, the HMV record of the same song that was recorded later in 1921.² The repetition is based on a recording format that constructs a musicality. A format that enables a construction of desire, a femininity to be imitated and impersonated on the stage.

This is the premise of the heroine’s situation: a telling where two friends share a moment holding each other’s hands, recalling and receiving a private memory that unfolds a homo-erotic spectacle, a blank, odd(?) state—I propose—in front of an audience that comprises men, a few respectable women and prostitutes who are seated in different arrangements.³ A devised moment of gender-caste conflict, of sexual discomfort and arousal, resulting in not wanting to speak.

emotive telling, the bol  '...raja-naatha…'.

Thumri singing occupies a distinct place in the genre of Hindustani music. It derives its literature from dialects and languages like Braj, Awadhi, Khari Boli, Urdu, Punjabi, Bhojpuri that incorporates seasons, festivals and everyday life of the people of North India. It is set to a mood of love and devotion. The kothas of the tawaifs/baijis (the professional singing women) is an important site where it was historically practised and flourished as an art form, as performers sung and danced, enacting the repertoire on their feet.

The possibilities of the bol (word) to be sung, holding and enhancing its emotive and literary meaning along with the repetition of the first line is the distinctiveness of thumri singing, specifically the way it is sung in Banaras. A musical imagination that has a nayika (a heroine), represents femininity, conveys erotic longing, at times a play of seduction, irrespective of the gender of the singer-performer. It has an upbeat rhythm cycle, sung at a speedy variation, which makes it a dadra.⁴ The notation of nahi mi bolat naatha was based on Moujuddin Khan’s (1875-1926) gramophone record of piraye mori akhiya, raja, hamse na bolo raja (1908, a dadra).⁵ The distribution of naatha to the notations of raja. A well known singer of the times from Kolkata; one of the very few male singers who recorded their voice in a market dominated by professional women singers.

 hum se na bolo, raja—naatha, nahi mi bolat.

The emotive ‘call’ in the vocal enunciations (bol/word/pronunciation) of the professional singing women, and the craft of this emotionality is a key point of musical ‘touch’ in understanding the phenomenon of the star heroines of the Marathi stage.⁶ A musical transgression where tunes of thumri-dadra songs are used to design the heroines’ songs based on a three minute vinyl record. It is its imitation and permeated repetition that constructs a standardised respectable femininity and a desire for it that is repeatedly mediated through the norm of impersonation.  

A musical code that mediates the heroine’s situation and the other worldly that is deployed to sing—not wanting to speak, the odd silence. A norm that reconfigures, bol (speak) based on the notations of a record of musical time as a citation. The plotting of a tune to fabricate heterosexual romance that transmediates sexuality as affect to its anonymous groups of listeners across timelines in the economy of voices.⁷ That is recorded, imitated and impersonated.