Reframing the courtesan: Umrao Jaan
Muzaffar Ali’s 1981 film, which transcends the labels of historical drama and tawaif film, is still a great watch 44 years after it was first released
Watching Muzaffar Ali’s Umrao Jaan restored by the National Film Archive of India was like taking a peek at a favourite Banarasi saree, one that has carefully folded in mulmul wrap, still fresh with the memory of when you last wore it.
A cinematic classic, the film which returned to theatres 44 years after its original release in 1981, lets the contemporary audience revisit the bygone world of tawaifs in its full complexity. Set in Faizabad and Lucknow of the 1840s, this period drama is about a distinct group of independent women performers who ushered in a unique salon culture during the 18 and 19th centuries. Connoisseurs of the fine life and all its trappings including dazzling jewellery and exquisite silks and brocades, they were often highly cultured and more educated than the average woman of their times. Some played an active role in resisting colonial rule and were active during the Uprising of 1857.
Umrao Jaan is centred around the life and times of Umrao Jaan Adaa, one such famed tawaif of Lucknow. The screenplay is adapted from Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s semi biographical Urdu novel of the same name. The story of Amiran, a young girl who is kidnapped and sold to kotha owner Khanum (Shaukat Kaifi) and who goes on to become a sought after tawaif – a role assayed to perfection by Rekha – recreates the feudal, decadent society of the period. While her talent makes Umrao Jaan a performer who is much sought-after, she is also repeatedly abused as a bazaari aurat, a woman outside the pale of polite society. A reflective Umrao reminiscences about all that’s happened to her: the kidnapping that was a result of a criminal neighbour wreaking revenge on her father, arriving at the kotha, her most intense but failed relationship that has left her broken... It tells of how the talented performer and versatile poet was straitjacketed by patriarchy into being a mere object of desire and little else.
What makes Umrao Jaan beautifully distinct is its near tactile quality with the evocation of historical elements like a gentle silken pashmina draped around the neck never poking the skin. It can be interpreted as a romantic film, a musical about a woman’s quest for dignity, a tale about heartbreak, all of which are intertwined strands much like Umrao’s beautiful silk parandis onscreen. A cinema of loss, longing, and introspection, it has the protagonist asking the big question, “Who Am I?” even as she faces a string of harsh life situations. The many poignant scenes with Umrao looking into the mirror transforms the mirror itself from mere prop to vital metaphor.
Muzaffar Ali’s direction presents the historical moment and the unique ethos of the courtesan’s world without overtly glamourising or underplaying it (as in the recent HeeraMandi). His approach ensured that Umrao Jaan was part of the rich list of authentic period films of the era like Junoon (1978) and Shatranj Ke Khilari (1977), which also continue to get better with each viewing. Its continued resonance can be attributed to the excellent Urdu dialogues by Shama Zaidi, Javed Siddiqi, and Ali himself, the sublime song lyrics by Shahryr, Subhashini Ali’s painstaking costume design that included heirloom jewellery (now back in fashion), and Ali and Bansi Chandragupta’s production design.
Though Ali, unlike Shyam Benegal or Satyajit Ray (directors of Junoon andShatranj Ki Khiladi, respectively) isn’t too invested in actual history, he employs an element of historicity via the fiercely anticolonial rebel-dacoit Faiz Ali (Raj Babbar). Rebel-dacoits were, of course, involved in the resistance against British rule that emerged after the annexation of the Kingdom of Awadh in 1856, which itself fanned the flames of the conflagration that was the Uprising of 1857.
Faiz Ali creates a beautiful twist in the storyline towards the end. Unlike the other men in her life, he accepts Umrao for who she is, a powerful woman. In his company, she is at her gutsy best. His brief presence in her life turns her towards reinventing herself as she walks away from the Lucknow kotha.
For the contemporary viewer, Umrao’s story is ‘modern’ and the film’s logline could read: “a successful woman, baffled by existential questions, tries to find herself as she navigates the world”. This is not far off the mark. Ali used elements of love and loss but adds the angle of introspection to open the narrative to more than one generation. This means Umrao Jaan transcends the labels of historical drama or tawaif film. The exploration of her search for identity and her evident dignity helps Umrao’s character emerge as a sensitive, emotionally mature and creatively accomplished woman who is not just an ‘object of desire’ like Zohra in Muqqaddar Ka Sikandar (1978) or so many other depictions of tawaifs as mere gaane,bajanewalis. Pertinently, the pejorative term was coined by the colonial administration to maintain their civic tax ledgers and is a perverse interpretation of salon culture.
Viewed almost four-and-a-half decades after it was made, Umrao Jaan remains as fresh as ever.
Nilosree Biswas is an author, filmmaker, columnist who writes about history, culture, food and cinema of South Asia, Asia and its diaspora.
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