‘Nature’ in the Ṭhumrī Genre as Performed by Some Female Exponents of the Pūrab Aṅg: Liminality, Identity and Resistance

Abstract

I discuss the treatment of the theme of nature in ṭhumrī by some female exponents of the Pūrab Aṅg (eastern style) in the various contexts where these artists were and are active, especially in the phase of transition from the style of hereditary performers to a new middle-class style of ṭhumrī. I elaborate on how courtesans have turned the rendition of these themes into one of their tools of covert resistance, given their default liminality and their marginalisation in the early twentieth century, and have later passed on this strategy to some non-hereditary women, who have adapted it to the bourgeois urban context maintaining its liminal features.

Keywords:

• Benares gharānā
• courtesans
• liminality
• nature
• resistance
• ṭhumrī
• women performers

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my guru Vidushi Sunanda Sharma and her guru Vidushi Girija Devi for the invaluable teachings they have generously granted me, illuminating my path into the repertoire of the Benaras vocal tradition. I am particularly thankful for the interview accorded to me by Sunandaji quoted in this paper. I also wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Giovanni Giuriati with the Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies of the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice and the researchers of Durham University involved in organising and recording Sunanda Sharma’s 2018 concert at the Foundation, which I have partially discussed in this paper. Finally, my thanks go to the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Richard David Williams, ‘Songs between Cities: Listening to Courtesans in Colonial North India’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 27, no. 4 (2017): 591–610; 594; Regula Burckhardt Qureshi, ‘Female Agency and Patrilineal Constraints: Situating Courtesans in Twentieth-Century India’, in The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Martha Feldman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 312–31; 317; Saba Dewan, Tawaifnama (Chennai: Context, 2019): 122–49.

2. On the bāījīs’ matrilineality, see Veena Talwar Oldenburg, ‘Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow, India’, Feminist Studies 16, no. 2 (1990): 259–87; Anna Morcom, Illicit Worlds of Indian Dance: Culture of Exclusion (London: Hurst & Co., 2013): 49.

3. Ibid., 52. William G. Archer, Songs for the Bride: Wedding Rites of Rural India, ed. Barbara Stoler Miller and Mildred Archer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985): 8, explains how fertility is promoted by dancing girls performing at rural weddings and how, being perpetually unmarried, they are auspicious for the bride. A similar concept is mentioned in the case of South Indian devadāsīs (temple dancers) in Doris M. Srinivasan, ‘Royalty’s Courtesans and God’s Mortal Wives: Keepers of Culture in Precolonial India’, in The Courtesan’s Arts: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, ed. Martha Feldman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 161–81; 172.

4. For ways in which courtesans have manifested fluidity of faith, see Amelia Maciszewski, ‘Stories about Selves: Selected North Indian Women’s Musical (Auto)biographies’, ‘Ethnomusicology and the Individual’, The World of Music 43, no. 1 (2001): 139–72; 166; Dewan, Tawaifnama, 23, talks of how Muslim courtesans used to celebrate the Hindu Teej festival as part of their traditions. A parallel can be traced with the case study discussed by Mukesh Kumar, ‘The Art of Resistance: The Bards and Minstrels’ Response to Anti-Syncretism/Anti-Liminality in North India’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 29, no. 2 (2019): 219–47.

5. The definition applies to a style of ṭhumrī sung in north-east India, specifically Benares, although this may include Lucknow and Gaya. Here I will consider Benares when referring to Pūrab Aṅg as the place of origin of bol banāo kī ṭhumrī (slow ṭhumrī) as referred to by Peter Manuel, Ṭhumrī in Historical and Stylistic Perspectives (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989): 77, 83, 87, and as the main focus of my field research of the last 20 years. The reason why I centre my paper on women exponents, although ṭhumrī has always been sung by men too, is to highlight their vital contribution to the reshaping of the genre in the twentieth century. Manuel’s monograph, the main source on the history of the genre, has portrayed it as primarily stylised by men, a viewpoint based on the mainstream post-Independence narrative.

6. Manuel, in Ṭhumrī in Historical and Stylistic Perspectives, limits himself to providing a summary translation of a few texts and categorising them according to contrived Sanskrit poetry parameters, while Lalita Du Perron, in Hindi Poetry in a Musical Genre: Ṭhumrī Lyrics (London: Routledge, 2007), particularly dwells on the literary aspect of the genre, but mostly focuses on its linguistic analysis and much less on the semantic implications. Vidya Rao, ‘Coda: A Meeting of Earth and Sky: The Monsoon in the Repertoire of Thumri’ in Monsoon Feelings: A History of Emotions in the Rain, ed. Imke Rajamani, Margrit Pernau and Katherine Butler Schofield (Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2018), both a performer and scholar, is more eloquent on the latter but mainly discusses the monsoon theme.

7. Du Perron, Hindi Poetry, 37, 39; Manuel, Ṭhumrī, 25–26. The two styles of ṭhumrī are the faster bandiś, literally ‘based on a fixed composition’, which was accompanied by dance in courts, and the slower bol banāo, literally ‘with dramatisation of lyrics’, whose performers transposed the dramatic element from dance to the vocal technique.

8. Arnold Van Gennep, I riti di Passaggio, Italian trans. Maria Luisa Remotti (Torino: Boringhieri, 1981).

9. In Marged Trumper, ‘La separazione e l’unione degli amanti nella tradizione popolare, mistica e cortese del Nord dell’India, con particolare riferimento al genere vocale thumri’, in Labirinti della mente visioni del mondo—Il lascito intellettuale di Elémire Zolla nel XXI secolo, ed. Grazia Mrchianò (Siena: Società Bibliografica Toscana, 2012), 333–34, I explain how union themes were originally prevalent in seasonal genres of the spring and separation themes were associated with songs of the monsoon.

10. Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre (New York: Paj Publications, 1982): 32.

11. Khyāl is currently the mainstream vocal genre of Hindustani art music and defined as ‘classical’ versus feminine romantic genres like ṭhumrī which are called ‘semiclassical’. Being a ‘classical’ genre, khyāl is aimed at thoroughly elaborating the grammar of the modal concept of rāg using lyrics as a merely musical element. Although khyāl’s texts feature numerous subjects, as described in Nicolas Magriel and Lalita Du Perron, The Songs of Khayal, Vol. 2 (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 2013), the treatment is similar for different texts in the same rāg. In ṭhumrī, instead, a performer is instructed to relate to the content of the lyrical element and consider it prevailing over the adherence to rāg rules.

12. I base my observations on archival research including compositions personally learnt from Girija Devi and Sunanda Sharma since 2004, recordings of full compositions found on the internet and my private recording collection by various ṭhumrī specialists of the twentieth and twenty-first century, and bibliographical search of anthologies such as Leela Karwal, Ṭhumrī Parichay (Allahabad: Sangeet Sadan Prakashan, 1982) and Du Perron, Hindi Poetry.

13. Līlā (divine play) is an important concept of Krishnaite mythology depicting Lord Krishna as a young cowherd mischievously interacting with milkmaids in Vrindavan. On a philosophical level, Hinduism considers this interplay as a metaphor for the Ultimate Reality (Brahman) interacting with the Universe.

14. Du Perron, Hindi Poetry, 37, 39; Manuel, Ṭhumrī, 25. Generalisation based on prevalence as both themes are found in both styles.

15. Sunanda Sharma, interviewed by author, Venice, Italy, January 26, 2020, translation from Hindi by author in brackets.

16. Rao, trained by Naina Devi, similarly groups subgenres such as jhūlā in the broad ṭhumrī category in ‘Coda’, 411.

17. Sharma, interviewed by author, Venice, Italy, January 26, 2020. The same verses by Surdas are mentioned in Giorgio Milanetti, Il divino amante: La pratica spirituale indiana della via d'amore (Roma: Ubaldini Editore, 1988): 23, to show the importance of nature in Bhakti poetry.

18. Dale A. Olsen, World Flutelore: Folktales, Myths, and Other Stories of Magical Flute Power (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013): 105–12.

19. See Marged Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna as a Symbol of Covert Resistance in a Female Vocal Genre of North India’, in Music and Resistance in the 20th-Century, ed. Igor Contreras and Helena Martín-Nieva (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022): 1–23; 17.

20. Olsen, World Flutelore, 72–73.

21. See Katherine Butler Brown, ‘The Social Liminality of Musicians: Case Studies from Mughal India and Beyond’, Twentieth–Century Music 3, no. 1 (2007): 13–49; 30.

22. Lata Singh, ‘Visibilising the “Other” in History: Courtesans and the Revolt’, Economic & Political Weekly 42, no. 19 (2007): 1677–80; 1680.

23. Adrian McNeil, ‘Tawa’if, Military Musicians and Shi’a Ideology in Pre-Rebellion Lucknow’, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 32, no. 1 (2009): 46–62; 60–61; Scott Kugle, When Sun Meets Moon: Gender, Eros, and Ecstasy in Urdu Poetry (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016): 160–65.

24. Singh, ‘Visibilising the “Other”’; Dewan, Tawaifnama, 59–60.

25. Salim Kidwai, ‘The Singing Ladies Find a Voice’, Seminar 540 (August 2004), accessed July 2, 2022, https://www.india-seminar.com/2004/540/540%20saleem%20kidwai.htm.

26. Morcom, Illicit Worlds, 32–41; Du Perron, Hindi Poetry, 55–66; Margaret Walker, India’s Kathak Dance in Historical Perspective (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2014): 89–98; Williams, ‘Songs between Cities’, 594–98.

27. Manuel, Ṭhumrī, 71–72; Williams ‘Songs between Cities’, 592.

28. See Butler Brown, ‘Social Liminality’, 39. Anna Morcom, Illicit Worlds, 63, explains how the confusing organisation of groups of hereditary performers was a strategic reaction to the criminalisation of nomadic groups by the British, beginning 1871.

29. See Marged Flavia Trumper, ‘The Adaptation of Lyrics, Music and Performance of the Hindustani Genre Ṭhumrī as a Tool of Affirmation for Professional Women Singers in the Changing North Indian Society of the XX Century’, in Words, Music and Gender, ed. Victor Kennedy and Michelle Gadpaille (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020): 158–76; 167.

30. See Lalita Du Perron, ‘Ṭhumrī: A Discussion of the Female Voice of Hindustani Music’, Modern Asian Studies 36 no. 1 (2002): 173–93; 192; Chloë Alaghband–Zadeh, ‘Analysing Ţhumrī’ (unpublished PhD thesis, SOAS, University of London, 2013): 109–74.

31. Butler Brown, ‘Social Liminality’, 44.

32. Williams, ‘Songs between Cities’, 601.

33. Jennifer Post, ‘Professional Women in Indian Music: The Death of the Courtesan Tradition’, in Women and Music in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. Ellen Koskoff (Champaign: University of Illinois Press 1989): 97–109; 104, 105.

34. Morcom, Illicit Worlds, 63, mentions the use of a secret language among communities of dancing girls.

35. See Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 15.

36. See Du Perron, ‘Ṭhumrī’, 179.

37. See Heidi Pauwels, ‘The Woman Waylaid at the Well or Paṇaghaṭa Līlā: An Indian Folk Theme Appropriated in Myths and Movies’, Asian Ethnology 69, no. 1 (2010): 1–33; 4–7.

38. Ibid., 13–17; Heidi Pauwels, The Goddess as Role Model: Sita and Radha in Scripture and on Screen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008): 466–69; Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 8–9.

39. Du Perron, ‘Ṭhumrī’, 180.

40. See James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, repr., 1992).

41. Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 12.

42. Ibid., 8.

43. Even simply being allowed to sing about the themes of their repertoire, using the stratagem of making Krishna the only addressee, can be seen as a form of resistance for hereditary female musicians in the early twentieth century. The ‘safe’ devotional metaphor made it easier to maintain the seductive element. The fact that Krishna is himself a subversive element allows them to be ambiguous about his symbolism. For a more in–depth analysis, see Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’.

44. For a comparison with the Greek god Pan harassing water nymphs, see Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 8.

45. Pauwels, ‘The Woman Waylaid’, 6, mentioning Saraswati Joshi, ‘La Femme et l’Eau: O Ma Belle Donne–Moi Deux Gorgeés à Boire’, Le Rajasthan, ses saints, ses héros, son peuple: En hommage à Shri Vraj Raj Joshi, ed. Annie Montaut (Paris: Inalco Publications, 2000): 63–80.

46. Archer, Songs, 9, states that the plant symbolises fertility for its prolific character and swaying lines.

47. Dale A. Olsen, World Flutelore, 40, 44–45, 50–68, mentions the fertility symbolism of flutes and wind instruments, including in Krishnaite stories.

48. I have previously analysed other compositions on this theme in Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 2–4.

49. Sadashiv Nadkarni, ‘Thumri Naina Devi 1990, Vol. 1’, YouTube video, 55:51; 00:04:25–00:23:42, May 24, 2020, accessed October 1, 2021, https://youtu.be/OBqABYa6gNs.

50. Vidya Rao, Heart to Heart: Remembering Nainaji (New Delhi: Harper Collins India, 2011): 4–26, 50–75.

51. See ibid., 82–90.

52. Maciszewski, ‘Stories about Selves’, 161.

53. Translation by author as for other compositions.

54. While the concept of honour as a patriarchal value is subverted in the baījīs’ perspective (see footnote 40 of this paper), it acquires a broader meaning of dignity as a ‘hidden transcript’ in their bol banāo.

55. Trumper, ‘Adaptation of Lyrics’, 171, 172.

56. Scott, Domination, 198.

57. Sudhir Kakar, Amore, passione, dolore: L'archetipo delle grandi storie d'amore, Italian trans. Giovanna Sacchi (Roma: Lyra Libri, 1991): 47–74.

58. See Magriel and Du Perron, The Songs, 197–98.

59. Informal personal communication with Sunanda Sharma during different time periods spent with her in India and in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2019.

60. See Magriel and Du Perron, The Songs, 197. An exception is the ṭhumrī mentioned in Trumper, ‘The Adaptation’, 169, with no addressee except the boatman.

61. See Van Gennep, I riti, 15,19.

62. See Trumper, ‘The Adaptation’, 172.

63. See Kakar, Amore, passione, 47–74.

64. I have previously analysed other compositions on this theme in Trumper, ‘The Adaptation’, 169–71.

65. Lyrics as provided by Sunanda Sharma.

66. See Magriel and Du Perron, The Songs, 197. Text explained by Girija Devi in Amelia Maciszewski, Gendered Stories, Gendered Styles: Contemporary Hindusthani Musical Discourse, Attitudes, and Practice (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1998): 417, as do mānī ṭhumrī (with two meanings: secular and spiritual).

67. See Kakar, Amore, passione, 88.

68. Rao, ‘Coda’, 428.

69. See Magriel and Du Perron, The Songs, 146–53.

70. About this symbolism for a swing in monsoon ṭhumrīs, see Rao, ‘Coda’, 412. Marius Schneider, La musica primitiva, Italian trans. Stefano Tolnay (Milano: Adelphi, 1992): 115, talks of how in some civilisations, rain symbolises the union of a sky god and an earth goddess.

71. The correspondence of lyrics with seasonal rāgs is mostly respected in ṭhumrī as the melody is hierarchically subordinated to the poetry. An example of a ṭhumrī in this rāg is mentioned in footnote 63 of this paper.

72. Two examples are in Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 7, and in Rao, ‘Coda’, 432.

73. Girija Devi, ‘Aao Piya More Aao—Thumri’, YouTube video, 10:35, July 22, 2019, accessed October 1, 2021, https://youtu.be/OBqABYa6gNs.

74. Ibid., 00:07:05–00:07:40.

75. See Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 17, on Girija Devi’s use of zamzamā in another ṭhumrī.

76. For the importance of rhyming words in ṭhumrī, see Du Perron, Hindi Poetry, 90–94.

77. Device used by esoteric mystic poets like Kabir to veil meaning: see Uttaran Dutta, ‘Sufi and Bhakti Performers and Followers at the Margins of the Global South: Communication Strategies to Negotiate Situated Adversities’, Religions 10, no. 3, 206 (2019): 6.

78. Nickname for Girija Devi used by her family and students.

79. Sharma, interviewed by author, Venice, Italy, January 26, 2020.

80. Girija, a Life Time in Music, directed by Debapriya Adhikary, Samanwaya Sarkar and Sankalp Meshram, 00:59:00:00–00:59:37:00, accessed November 26, 2021, https://cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/54512/Girija–A-Life-Time-in-Music.

81. Steven Feld, Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and Song in Kaluli Expression (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990): 135, 162.

82. For an analysis on the theme of nature in modern Hindi poetry as exposed in critic Ramachandra Shukla’s essay, Natural Scenes in Poetry (1923), see Valerie Ritter, Kāma̍’s Flowers: Nature in Hindi Poetry and Criticism, 1885–1925 (New Delhi: Dev Publishers, 2013): 246–47. Girija Devi’s awareness of the cultural reform and how she integrated it in her music can be also detected in her choosing to sing folk poems by revivalist traditionalist Hindu poet Harishchandra Bhartendu (1850–85) of Benares.

83. Maciszewski, Gendered Stories, 356, defines the constant references to rivers in her music texts as a Banārsī ‘identity maker’.

84. Gharānā is a lineage and in music indicates a specific stylistic tradition associated with a geographic place.

85. In Trumper, ‘Lord Krishna’, 16, 17, I discuss how making Krishna the main addressee in ṭhumrī has been mostly regarded as adaptive devotionalism to avoid the seductive component on the part of specialists of the genre, but if seen as a ‘hidden transcript’, it acquires the features of covert resistance. Scott, Domination, 198, mentions the use of carnival symbolism as a form of covert dissent. Krishnaite themes featuring the subversive hero fall into this category.

86. Post, ‘Professional Women’, 104, discusses how by the mid twentieth century, various bāījīs from Marathi- and Konkani-speaking regions rejected the female repertoire and embraced only khyāl. Although she sees it as a way to positively elevate their status and music, I argue this meant rejecting their identity to the point that some of them had notably developed a masculine voice. Maciszewski, Gendered Stories, 351, mentions how the repertoire of Gangubai Hangal (1913–2009) changed from including female genres to avoiding them completely. More direct evidence can be found in the interview with singer Mogubai Kurdikar (1904–2001) in Dr. Romil Jain, ‘Mogubai Kurdikar Speaks about Kishori Amonkar’, YouTube video, 7:53, May 28, 2018, accessed October 1, 2021, https://youtu.be/YW6MxpSee60, where she states she refuses to sing anything but khyāl.

87. Rao, ‘Coda’, 431, explains this technique used by ṭhumrī specialists.

88. A family of monsoon rāgs.

89. Deepak Raja, CD booklet of Girija Devi, Subhen Chatterjee, Ramesh Mishra—Thumri, Tappa & Hori (New York: India Archive Music, 2004): 22.

90. Vidya Rao, ‘Ṭhumrī as a Feminine Voice’, Economic & Political Weekly 25, no. 17 (1990): WS31–9; WS35. She applies Turner’s liminality theories to ṭhumrī on page WS32.

91. A musician who has undergone the traditional ceremony of the guru tying the sacred thread on their wrist to symbolise their official affiliation to the guru’s lineage. Only a few dedicated students are granted this official recognition.

92. Intercultural Institute of Comparative Music Studies (henceforth, IICMS) of the Giorgio Cini Foundation, Venice, ‘Concerto–Sunanda Sharma e la scuola di Benares (India)’, June 16, 2018, Archive of Comparative Music Studies of the IICMS.

93. Magriel and Du Perron, The Songs, 147, explain that papihā may refer to different birds, but in this case, it is a pied cuckoo due to its characteristic sound.

94. For a detailed analysis of Sharma’s performance of this composition, see Alaghband–Zadeh, ‘Analysing Ţhumrī’, 201–36.

95. IICMS, ‘Concerto–Sunanda Sharma’ (00:30:35–00:31:19).

96. Alaghband–Zadeh, ‘Analysing Ţhumrī’, 213.

97. Personal communication with Sunanda Sharma, Venice, Italy, June 2018.

98. This was evident when, during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, the artist posted on her social media videos of her singing the natural elements at her native village: Sunanda Sharma, Facebook, June 1, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/sunanda.sharma.961/videos/10156990655565759; Sunanda Sharma, Facebook, March 22, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/sunanda.sharma.961/videos/10157063631390759.

99. Trumper, ‘The Adaptation’, 169, 173–74.

100. Turner, From Ritual, 29, explains the use of binary concepts of opposites that model simple social structures. The large use of these in ṭhumrī lyrics indicates the liminal space between opposites creating the tension represented in ṭhumrī performances. Opposites can be understood as a reflection of the mid-way status of liminality through a sort of enigmatic language as defined in Dutta, ‘Sufi and Bhakti Performers’, 2.

101. See footnote 76 of this paper.

102. Turner, From Ritual, 27, 33, 44.

103. On this distinction, see Butler Brown, ‘Social Liminality’, 25.

104. Ibid., 21.

105. Ibid., 30.

106. Ibid., 45.

107. See Alaghband–Zadeh, ‘Analysing Ţhumrī’, 12, on how even non-hereditary women musicians in contemporary India still face strong social prejudice as opposed to their male peers.

108. Rao, ‘Coda’, 427.

109. Girija, a Life Time in Music; Films Division, ‘Girija Devi’, YouTube video, 49:29, October 25, 2017, accessed June 15, 2022, https://youtu.be/_5GGIzdH5fM; see also Maciszewski, Gendered Stories, 356–57, 409.