The Last Courtesans of Bombay

With Mujra in decline, a neighbourhood that was once the nerve centre of Bombay’s courtesan culture struggles to stay alive, in the final episode of our podcast series.

English Translation of Episode 4: A Crumbling Community

Naseem Bhai: There were many shops selling perfumes. Perfumes used to sell very well, so there were lots of shops selling it. Not just perfumes, ladies’ accessories like lipstick, powder, etc. — there were shops selling these, too. But all those have shut now. The rent used to be Rs. 8,000 earlier; now it is down to Rs. 3,000. You can see, all those shops are shut now. Earlier, this road used to be bustling with activity, gleaming with lights.

Voiceover in English, amid mujra performers singing.

Woman 1: You come here to enjoy. It is my job to make you fall in love with me. If I don’t show you love, how will you feel love for me?

Woman 2: All my family members have cut off all ties from me because I entered this industry. They said, ‘We can’t kill her because, after all, it’s the family blood. We won’t be able to kill, so let’s cut off all ties.’

Man: At 4 am, when the whistle used to blow, the music would finally stop. Till then, every house would be lit up. But now, no one comes here. People can barely recover their rents. There is no business here, how can people run shops here?

Voiceover in English.

Host Kunal Pirohit: Can you tell me a bit more about the ambiance back then? Would it be as dark as it is right now?

Naseem Bhai: No, no. The ambiance and illumination then … till 4 am, when the performances finished and the final whistle was blown, till then, there would be lights outside every house. People would also use some flower garlands with these lights to decorate the outside of their houses. Each house’s decoration was distinct. There would be vendors selling flowers, walking around applying mehndi (henna), some vendors would walk around selling snacks in small pouches. It felt as if a market was setting up at 4 am, as soon as people got free from the performances.

There was a café here, Sardar Hotel, which would remain shut through the day but make up for its business in those few hours of the night. There would so much activity even at 4 am that no one would feel scared, walking around. So, as soon as the performances ended, all these vendors would come. There used to be many taxis in the area to drop the performers to their homes. Often, when we couldn’t fall asleep, we would listen to the whistle and know it’s 4 am and it was time for us to sleep.

Voiceover in English.

Naseem Bhai: Back in the day, this hotel used to be so busy that it would be impossible to buy seekh kababs from here! There used to be long queues of people from all over the city, because Sayyed’s Seekh Kebabs were so famous. Both, patrons, as well as visitors, would spend money in the neighborhood, eating, shopping, drinking.

Voiceover in English.

Naseem Bhai: We had appointed Ismail Bhai, whose job was to blow the whistle at 4 am each morning. The whistle meant all performances had to stop immediately. Then, after 9 to 10 am, people could start performances again. So, even if your patrons insisted that they wanted to listen to performances at 4 am, you could not perform. Performers would tell such patrons to wait for a few hours. The rule was clear — no matter who the patron is, no matter how he was paying, you could not perform beyond 4 am.

Voiceover in English.

Naseem Bhai: One of the best things about the community is that ‘time’ — time is what they called mujra — during ‘time,’ if someone died, then the mujra would shut down for a day. No matter who died, whether it was in the immediate neighborhood, or someone in the family of the performers, the mujra would remain shut for a day as a mark of respect. That day, even if the wealthiest man in the city came to your door, you were not allowed to perform. You could offer him tea and a snack, but you were not allowed to perform.

Voiceover in English.

Interview with Anna Morcom in English.

Voiceover in English.

Naseem Bhai: In the jalsa (celebration), the performers of the neighborhood would sing and dance. This was done in the open. These performers would not charge for it. All the money that was collected was donated to whatever was the occasion — an urgent humanitarian cause, a terror attack, or if a family did not have enough money to get their daughters married.

Voiceover in English.

Naseem Bhai: After a death in the neighborhood, or even during Muharram, for all 12 days, these performers still hold langars (free communal kitchens), where free meals are given to anyone who comes, no matter what faith they belong to. All performers and kothas pool in money and contribute, depending on what they can afford.

Voiceover in English.

Interview with Anna Morcom in English.

In this episode, a mother-daughter courtesan duo reflects on their divergent paths, and how much this matrilineal culture has changed in just one generation.

English Translation of Episode 3: A Break With the Past

Voiceover in English.

Woman 1: You come here to enjoy. It is my job to make you fall in love with me. If I don’t show you love, how will you feel love for me?

Woman 2: All my family members have cut off all ties from me because I entered this industry. They said, ‘We can’t kill her because, after all, it’s the family blood. We won’t be able to kill, so let’s cut off all ties.’

Man: At 4 am, when the whistle used to blow, the music would finally stop. Till then, every house would be lit up. But now, no one comes here. People can barely recover their rents. There is no business here, how can people run shops here?

Voiceover in English.

Host Kunal Pirohit: Zoya, how long have you been in this industry for?

Zoya: I have been in this industry for 8 years now.

Host Kunal Pirohit: And how about your education? What have you studied?

Zoya: I haven’t studied much. I studied till the third class in Mira Road. After that, we came to Bombay and we had to let go of our school. Things were going smooth here when we suddenly faced some problems and hence, had to come into this industry.

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: When I started off, I didn’t know how to dance. I used to go to dance bars, but there was no dancing there. We had to just stand there. After that, when I started going to mujra, I saw that the women there danced so well. So, aunty would smack me on the feet! It would never be very hard. She would say, if I couldn’t dance, how would I learn, how will I earn? So, she would constantly push me to learn. She would keep giving me cold looks when I couldn’t get it right. She told me she would whack me in front of customers. Fearing such an insult, I started learning how to dance. (Laughs)

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: Earlier, mujra dancers were conservatively dressed. Now, the more revealing they are, the better it is for business. So, the kotha managers also encourage us to ‘dress well.’ They mean as revealing as possible. This used to not be the case, earlier.

Host Kunal Pirohit: How do customers select which kotha to go, because there are so many of these at Congress House?

Zoya: Generally, customers walk around and check all the rooms out. They come and see where the women are good-looking and then, based on what they see, they decide where to go.

Voiceover in English.

Zoya:Let’s say, there is a new customer who has walked in for the first time. So, you have to look at them, smile, so that he selects you. Women think, if he selects me, I’ll earn some money and get a new customer. So, at first, you dance for them and then customers exchange numbers.

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: There are many new ‘Madams’ in town. They force performers to go out with their customers. They often make it compulsory, saying you can be part of the kotha only if you agree to meet customers outside the kotha. So, the performer thinks that the only way to earn good money is to go out with customers. The kotha that I work in has a very good Madam. She has left it to us to decide if we want to go out with customers or not. She doesn’t force us, either way.

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: Such private performances used to not take place earlier. But, now they are common. The private performance happens in the same room. So, whenever a customer requests for a private performance, everyone else except the dancer and the customer leaves the room. Often, during the dance, the guy tries to touch the woman and exploits the situation. The man is not allowed to touch the woman, but because she’s alone, he tries to do these things. The dancer can’t say much because she knows if says anything, he’ll patronize someone else. These days, most girls are here only to earn good money. They don’t care about the morality of it.

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: Some boys came from this neighborhood in Mumbai called Dongri. They said they liked me and wanted to meet me outside the kotha. My kotha’s Madam, said if she agrees, she can go; it was her decision, she said. I had already told her that I won’t like to go.

It depends on the women, right? But, those guys insisted. The Madam told the guys that they can’t do anything against my wishes. Lots of other men also came. Finally, the police had to be called. The Madam said that we had only agreed for a performance, we never agreed to meet them outside. Then, how could they insist on such things?

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: During my mother’s time, there was respect for us. She knows that it has gotten worse but she hasn’t faced it, so she doesn’t know how bad it is. We fight these circumstances every day. So, my mother doesn’t understand what we feel; she has no clue what we’ve been through. She tells me to eat, but there are days when I don’t even feel like having food. I keep thinking about what all has happened in the day. You feel hurt but you can’t say much. But you can’t discuss this with your family. Just come home, have dinner and sleep. I don’t have anyone to share all this with; it gets heavy keeping it inside, but I must. If I tell my mum, she’ll feel terrible and worry a lot. I don’t want her health to be affected. It has taken a lot for her to feel better and get healthy again.

Often, I keep thinking about my life, thinking what’ll happen, when will I leave this and settle down. I replay everything that has happened in my days. I can’t share it with anyone; I just keep thinking about it. If I had a friend, I would have been able to share it. But I don’t even have such a friend.

Voiceover in English.

Zoya: I’ll have to keep working till my family settles down, till my younger sister gets married, till my elder sister’s son sets up his professional life. When all this is done, I’ll happily walk away from this work. I don’t enjoy this work. Only I know how I survive, working through this.

In Episode 2, a family of courtesans from the secretive Mujra community finally opens up. A trained Urdu poet and a singer-dancer discuss their craft and their place in society.

English Translation of Episode 2:

Voiceover in English, amid ambient conversations from Bachu Seth Ki Wadi.

Woman 1: You come here to enjoy. It is my job to make you fall in love with me. If I don’t show you love, how will you feel love for me?

Woman 2: All my family members have cut off all ties from me because I entered this industry. They said, ‘We can’t kill her because, after all, it’s the family blood. We won’t be able to kill, so let’s cut off all ties.’

Man: At 4 am, when the whistle used to blow, the music would finally stop. Till then, every house would be lit up. But now, no one comes here. People can barely recover their rents. There is no business here, how can people run shops here?

Voiceover in English, amid ambient conversation.

Rani, narrating her own poetry:

Her eyes are enough to intoxicate me;I drink each morning, I drink each nightI get intoxicated just by looking at her eyesEven if someone gets me drunk for free,I drink only to her name.What is the point of getting me drunk?What is the point of us, looking into each other’s eyes?If you can’t get me intoxicated,Then what is the point of making me fall in love with you?

Voiceover in English, amid Rani’s ambient singing.

Host Kunal Pirohit: So, how long did your taleem (education) in Mujra take?

Rani: I started training when I was 10 to 11 and I am still singing, still learning. When I was a child, my guru started with making me do riyaz (daily practice of singing/playing music) every day for half an hour, an hour, or even more. Sometimes, he would teach me to sing in tune with the tabla. Then, he would ask me to practice my singing by controlling my breath. Sometimes, it would take hours and hours. If I didn’t get it right, I would keep doing the same thing for hours and hours. (Laughs)

Then, slowly, I started doing my own riyaz, even without my guru. I learned how to play the harmonium and would sing along.

Host Kunal Pirohit: You learned the harmonium by yourself?

Rani: I started with the basic, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa (Do Re Mi Fa So). I started off with that and then, slowly, started all my singing practice with the harmonium.

Host Kunal Pirohit: So, when did you start performing mujra?

Rani: I started singing very early in my life. We were very poor, so we didn’t really have a choice. So, I started off when I was 11. My sister started when she was 13 or 14.

Voiceover in English.

Host Kunal Pirohit: Can you tell me something about the time that you started doing mujra? Like, how many people … ?

Rani: Those were very good times. Let’s say, mujra started at 8 pm. It would then go on for the whole night and sometimes, even the whole morning, without food or sleep. So, often, we would joke that we wished someone, somewhere, dies and the mujra shuts down. Or else, the mujra would just go on! You see, we had a practice of shutting down mujra as a mark of respect in someone in the community died.

Voiceover in English.

Rani: We were very poor.

Host Kunal Pirohit: What did your father do?

Rani: He had died at a young age.

Host Kunal Pirohit: So, your mother had to shoulder the entire responsibility of raising the children by herself?

Rani: Yes. Honestly, in our industry, mother, father, it’s all the same — the mother has to do all the duties. No [man] comes back to take care of his children. They all walk away. No one comes back.

Voiceover in English.

A clip plays from the Hindi film, Devdas:

Man (sarcastically): This celebration has played out so well! An upper-caste landlord family’s daughter-in-law is today standing with a courtesan! Wow.

Courtesan: You know this very well and so does the village. That the reason we courtesans are so popular is because of landlords. If there are children in the tawaif’s house, that’s also because of landlords like you. You might call them sex workers, but, after all, they are genetically from families like yours.

Woman: Just by standing with a landlord’s wife, a sex worker cannot become one.

Voiceover in English.

Reema: Today, when wives complain about us, they need to realize: what rights do we even have? We don’t have a license to ask for our rights from any of the men who come here and father our children. Can we ever go to a man and ask them to give us what is rightfully ours, when we bear their children? We can’t. As against that, even if a man goes to a 100 tawaifs like me, he still belongs to his wife. His wife, still, has all the rights over him in a way that if he does anything wrong, she can take him to task.

So, then, are we the ones wronged, or do we do wrong? Every tawaif is wronged by the men who come here and walk away.

Voiceover in English.

Reema: This is my business — that I run mujra kothas. Now, the police ask people like me to pay up Rs 2 lakh as extortion money if we want to run our kothas. Where will we get this money from? We will have to earn it the ‘bad way.’ If the government cracks down on the police and ensures that no one asks to pay bribes, no woman will be forced to do ‘bad work.’ But if you ask me for bribes, I will have to earn it the wrong way. It is the government which is, in fact, making us tawaifs into prostitutes. Then, why does the government pretend to care about us? If I have a large family and I alone can’t feed them, then I will be forced to bring their sisters into their profession.

In my time, I used to start dancing at 11 pm and finish at 12 pm, noon. I used to earn lakhs of rupees, only through my dance. No one would care about my name. They all loved the dance. Now, even if a customer gives us Rs 10, he wants to first see our face. This is how precarious a situation the government has created. But now, even if I push 10 girls into the trade, you still can’t make enough money to survive. The police has ensured this.

The men have realized that the women are desperate. Earlier, the men knew that no matter what they did, women like us would never sleep with them. Now, the men have realized our helplessness.

Voiceover in English.

Reema: They say, if you want to know what love is, come to a tawaif’s kotha. But, do it only till it amuses you. If you love too much, it can kill you.

The people who come here to fall in love are crazy. A tawaif, by the very nature of her job, can never be anyone’s love. She is here to earn money. Even if you cover her with money, it will still not be enough for her. Our needs are not compatible. You are foolish, then, to fall in love with us, aren’t you?

There is no man who doesn’t know this and who doesn’t know what happens at a mujra kotha. You come here to enjoy. It is our job to make you feel like we love you. If I don’t show you love, how will you go crazy after me? Only when I make you go crazy for me will you spend money on me. If I tell you that I don’t love you, will you love me? Will you tip me? You won’t.

In Episode 1, our host, Kunal, tries to find a connection to this insular world.

English Translation of Episode 1:

Woman 1: You come here to enjoy. It is my job to make you fall in love with me. If I don’t show you love, how will you feel love for me?

Woman 2: All my family members have cut off all ties from me because I entered this industry. They said, ‘We can’t kill her because, after all, it’s the family blood. We won’t be able to kill, so let’s cut off all ties.’

Man: At 4 am, when the whistle used to blow, the music would finally stop. Till then, every house would be lit up. But now, no one comes here. People can barely recover their rents. There is no business here, how can people run shops here?

Voiceover in English.

Woman: If you sell your elegance and style, people will queue up every day in hope. The same way, some will keep hoping that Reema will give me an interview. If I hadn’t made you wait, would you have been so desperate to interview me? I made you desperate and that’s why you went back to Naseem and asked him to convince me to talk to you. If I would have given you an interview right away, you wouldn’t have valued me, would you? It’s when I made you wait that you realised that I was sending out a signal to you. That’s why you had to request me for the interview repeatedly. (Laughs)