Gendered politics of Gaanewali’s ghazals 

Mumbai-based O Gaanewali delves into the history of ghazals with their performances

By Gaurika Mehrotra

O Gaanewali, a music group from Mumbai, recently performed at the Bangalore International Centre. As producer and vocalist Avanti Patel’s voice rang through the air, delivering her very first line of the evening, Kale baadal gher hai, the audience was transported to the age of gaanewalis and nachnewaalis — the tawaifs of India. 

As this intoxicating mehfil wove its charm around each seated member, the performers painted intricate tales of these magnificent women artistes. The baithak alternated between mellifluous ghazals and the stories of the women who composed and sang them. 

“I am never not going to talk about women,” Avanti said in an interview prior to the performance. “To have the female gaze in a ghazal is very rare — when it was in fact the ustaads and the pandits who co-opted this genre from the tawaifs,” she said. 

Vocalist Rujuta Lad shed light on the esoteric education that these courtesans received in comparison to the women of their era. “These were highly intellectual women, fluent in languages such as Farsi and Urdu, despite it being considered inappropriate for respectable women to perform on stage,” she shared. 

Notwithstanding their creative genius, there were attempts to sanitise their music of sensual elements and people claimed that the only way to “save” these trendsetters of Indian music was to marry them off. In fact, these women needed no saving from men. Being among the highest tax payers to the British government, their coffers were overflowing! 

The audience was witness to a strong rapport between the harmonium player Apoorv Petkar and the tabalchi Akshay Jadhav. His fingers rolled away on the tabla, against the backdrop of the complementary timbres of the female voices.