The courtyard of the kotha is still. Scattered across its breadth, some pigeons playfully coo at each other. Moulvi saab lies on a charpoy. Draped in bright pink, green and yellow, Umrao is seated by his side, listening intently. He breaks into a ghazal:
“Khabar-e-tahayyur-e-ishq sun na junūñ rahā na parī rahī
Na to tū rahā na to maiñ rahā jo rahī so be-ḳhabarī rahī.”
“This be-ḳhabarī does not imply ignorance,” Moulvi saab tells Umrao. “It is the ultimate consequence of love…where everything ends; nothing remains.” Umrao listens in awe. “Neither the lover remains, nor the amour. What remains, is this state of being, which the shayar calls be-ḳhabarī. It is this state that is the ultimate beauty of this couplet,” says Moulvi saab. “Subhanallah!” Umrao exclaims, breathlessly.
The pursuit of this delicious imagination becomes Umrao’s raison d'être. In many ways, this ghazal is prophetic for Umrao (Rekha)—a young courtesan, sold as a child to Khanum Jaan’s (Shaukat Kaifi) kotha in Lucknow by her kidnappers. Incidentally, every time Umrao falls in love with a sher, it shapes her story within its meter. It is this devil in the details that orchestrates the true brilliance of Umrao Jaan (1981).
Crafted by Muzaffar Ali, the film is wrought in a history that intersperses cultural nostalgia with decadence. Its story was adapted from Umrao Jaan Ada, an 1899 Urdu novel by Mirza Hadi Ruswa that is often touted as one of the first novels in the language. The allure of Umrao Jaan is not just in its characters’ recitals; the film embodies poetry in its form. Be it the bittersweet happenstances in which Umrao finds herself, or the unpredictability of her fate; the mujras that lift spectators off their feet or the riyaz that harks back to the ganga-jamuni tehzeeb from a bygone era—it is as if the verses aren’t merely spoken, but ingrained as a rhythm to which the film dances on the screen. It is no wonder then, that its digitally restored re-release in the theatres has brought so much delight to audiences old and young.
Ali’s world-making is the film’s strongpoint. The tawaif’s world is designed with delicacy and rich in texture. The language of Urdu emulsifies the air with its nazaakat, while Khayyam’s music and Shahryar’s lyrics engage in their own rasleela. The heart surrenders to the desire and yearning that lace Umrao’s ghazals in Asha Bhosle’s voice. As Brahma Vishnu Mahesh flow into Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya without a hiccup in Umrao and Bismillah’s (Prema Narayan) musical and dance training, the culturally composite traditions of tawaifs come alive—making secularism seem ingrained rather than forced. Umrao Jaan speaks to a crucial turning point in the Indian subcontinent’s history, of Nawabi complacency and British connivance in Awadh. And in conversing with this past, its storytelling is immaculate.
Umrao Jaan broke the mould in more ways than one. In genre, it became a rarity in its own right, by bringing into the fold of Muslim socials a narrative led by a woman. Rekha—in her innocence as Amiran and wisdom as Umrao—discarded the conventions of the largely two-dimensional roles that actresses were offered in mainstream Hindi cinema during the time. Though some critics hold the view that Umrao Jaan led to an overbearing perception of the tawaif as a victim of circumstances, robbed of agency and power, a closer look at Rekha’s absorption of her character speaks otherwise. The depth of hues that she brings to Umrao’s personhood demonstrate that she can love or ache, grasp or let go of the reins over her autonomy with equal abandon. Umrao’s strength lies in her endurance—it spills over in the subtle but firm assertion of her independence—whether in choosing to love a Nawab (Farooq Shaikh) or escaping the kotha with a stranger (Raj Babbar as Faiz Ali).
Another aspect through which Umrao resists pure victimhood is the joy she derives from her labour. She doesn’t dance and sing simply because she is tied to this fate; what comes through her performance and makes her a revered figure is the due diligence she shows towards her art. She wishes to learn how to recite ghazals and thread them into her music. She studies to hone her articulation and perform her poetry. At the same time, she remains aware that mushairas alone won’t fill her stomach—for that, she needs her mujras.
Ali remains honest in depicting the social structure of the tawaif’s world by summarily rejecting heteronormative coupling as the ultimate community to aspire for. Umrao may have had her heart broken, but she refuses Gauhar Mirza (Naseeruddin Shah)’s proposition to marry simply to be “uplifted” from her profession. Significant screen time is dedicated to the strong bonds she forges with Bismillah, Khanum jaan’s daughter and Ram Dai (Rita Rani Kaul), Nawab Sultan’s wife and her childhood friend. Bismillah isn’t envious; she sees in Umrao a better performer than herself and respects it. Ram Dai desires her presence to bless her child. It is these women who truly hold space for her to grieve her loss.
Umrao Jaan is not without its flaws. The film is replete with references that conflate the tawaif with randi (sex worker)—not just a common misconception about the tawaif culture but also a reductive derivation that has colonial roots. Tawaifs were powerful figures, revered for their cultural capital and intellectual prowess. Materially, they were some of the most well-endowed individuals in the society. As historians point out, many courtesans willingly came to kothas fleeing abusive families. It was the British who stripped tawaifs of their landholdings, forcing some of them into sex work to make a living. Although tawaifs did have multiple partners, they weren’t always coerced and sex work was not their primary means of income. Rather, they made a living through performing their art. While sex work is labour in its own right and shouldn’t come with a value judgement, the reinforcement of this conflation is disempowering because it strips the tawaif of the socio-cultural and financial autonomy they enjoyed, which sex workers did not.
The film cannot redeem itself from this overarching misconception. However, grace is to be found in the empathy with which the tawaif is treated in Umrao Jaan. Umrao is never robbed of dignity in the film—where there is humiliation, she walks away willingly, even if it means parting with her loved ones. She is a survivor who carries many selves within her person. Her pain lingers, but never defines. What remains is the state of be-ḳhabarī—the aftermath that reconstitutes her, much like it reconstitutes a nation in torment.
