Written by london swaminathan

Date: 16 April, 2016

Post No. 2731

Time uploaded in London :–20-06

( Thanks for the Pictures  ) 

DON’T REBLOG IT AT LEAST FOR A WEEK!  DON’T USE THE PICTURES; THEY ARE COPYRIGHTED BY SOMEONE.

(for old articles go to tamilandvedas.com OR swamiindology.blogspot.com)

“On the evening of our visit to the city of Poona and to the sacred hill of Parvati, we were invited to a nautch dance at the house of an old people and most esteemed friend, Mr Dorabji Pudumji.

It is the custom on festive occasions to illuminate the gardens and house fronts with numberless oil lamps set on pyramidal stands, or suspended in the trees. A flood of light, therefore, welcomes the guest on arrival, and he passes into spacious apartments equally bright, with candles in brass buttis, or handsome glass chandeliers.  There is nowhere greater grace or cordiality of greeting than among the educated families of India; but, in truth, this is the land of fine and noble manners, and from the cultivated Parsee and Mohammedan friends to the peasant and the peon, the Western traveller may receive, if he will, perpetual lessons of good breeding.

The ladies of old friend’s family were ranged round the large central room in dresses of light gauzy muslins or silks delicately embroidered, and dyed with all the loveliest tints imaginable, rose colour predominating. The effect was like a garden of beautiful flowers. The gentlemen wore black coats and hats of the well-known Parsee fashion, with trousers of crimson or white. In the centre of the apartment sat the two nautch girls, Wazil -Bukshs, a Mohammedan, and Krishnaa, a Hindu, both amazingly arrayed in I skirts of scarlet and gold, with saris of bright hue, plentifully spangled, tight gilded trousers, and anklets of silver and gold bells, which make a soft tinkling of  at every movement of soft brown feet. Behind them stand their three musicians, one playing the sarangi, a sort of violin,  the other the tamboora, a deep sounding kind of violoncello, and the third provided with a bass and treble drum tied round his waist  on an ornamented scarf. The girls rose to their feet, salammed, and one of them began a slow pas, advancing and retreating with a rhythmical  waving of hands and measured beat of foot, which the other dancer then repeated.

Next followed a song, or a series of songs, delivered in high head notes, and principally of an amatory character.

“My beloved is absent, and by day there is no sun in the sky, no moon for me at night! But he is coming, ek hath Khali – with one hand empty – yet in that he carries me back my heart.”

Then Krishnaa sang the “Taza ba Taza”, the musicians advancing and retreating with her tinkling paces, leaning over the absorbed performer, and seeming in the intensity of their accompaniment to nurse the singing and draw it forth note by note.

After this the Muslim girl and her Hindu sister executed together a famous dance called the “Kurrar”, which consists of a series of character pictures. They placed coquettish little caps of spangled velvet on their black hair, and acted first of all the Indian jeune amorexux, adjusting his turban, stroking his moustache and pencilling his eyebrows. The it was Govinda, one corner of the sari twisted up to represent the bansula, on which the light hearted god  piped to the shepherdess, and  Radha listening and singing. Next to the same never ending  rise and fall of the amorous  music – Wazil Bhukshs became a love-sick maiden  in the jungle, picking up blossoms to fasten in her hair, and Krishnaa followed, enacting a serpent charmer. Playing on the beaded gourd that snake  music which brings the hooded cobra forth from his deepest hole, she swayed her lithe body  over the imaginary reptile, chanting the notes of dreamy, bewildering, beguiling song;  bent herself over the half entranced snake, coaxing him with out long , low, weird passages of wild melody , until the charm have supposed to have  triumphed, the serpent was bewildered and captured; whereupon Krishna rose to her feet, and drawing the glittering fringe  of her sari over forehead, expanding it with both hands, so as to resemble a cobra’s hood , she finished with the snake-dance, amid cries of “shabash” (well done)! Which were acknowledged with deep salaams.

We were favoured after this, with special request, with the Holi and Wasanta songs, albeit not of the season; for Hindu singing is always more or less religious, and there are certain of these melodies set apart for the time of  year, and for the daylight and others which must never be given except after the hour of midnight. When the first portion was concluded  the mistress of the house hung “hars” or garlands, of sweet scented blossoms on  the necks and the writs of the nautch dancers, since it is always the custom to honour them in this way before any  other guests. Nor does anybody slight or abuse these Deva dasas, or servants of the god, though their profession is perfectly understood

South Indian Devadasis

In southern India the Nautchee is married solemnly to a dagger, by a ceremony called ‘shej’, and lives afterwards as a Bhavin, dedicated to the temple and dance.  But because so many of them can read, write and in fact are the cleverest and most accomplished, as well as the most generous of their sex, the Hindus have come to shudder at the idea of education for their wives, and this is one of the greatest obstacles  to female instruction. When they rested and munched their betel leaf, a skilful player from Canara discoursed singular passages upon an eight stringed sitar, accompanied by a boy on tamboora; and afterwards followed sweetmeats, and attar of roses, whereupon some of us had had enough, and we made adieux. The natives will, however, sit out the whole nights, listening to such music, and watching the soft movements of the Nautchees, which are the more interesting, of course,  the better they are comprehended.”

Source : India Revisited by Edwin Arnold, 1886

–Subham–