A tribute to androgyny

When the society all around the world is already beleaguered with so many disparities, then the question of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and its continuous fight for a respectable place and position in the mainstream arena is yet another uncertainty.

Androgynous fashion has taken a firm root and in glamour-realms, there is mockery of everything and anything feminine is ridiculous. That’s why women are still so devalued, underestimated and undermined where male volumes are always raised to highest decibels. Even in fields of performing arts, a drag queen is derided and shown in poor light. It is usually a male figure — a person or an actor, who ostentatiously dresses up in women’s clothes in clubs, theatre, cinema or folk plays.

In today’s non-fiction television feeds, appearance of drag queens has become too frequent and widely popular. Exaggerated femininity, over-the-top costumes, affected body language, loud make-up and dialogue delivery are part of the paraphernalia in order to create a dramatic and satirical effect. But tickling the funny bone is a tough job as comedy means serious business and the ensuing laughs, must be unadulterated.

To the uninitiated, centuries-old cultural history of India confirms the presence of true professional and greatly dedicated drag artistes in theatrical and folk play formats. Even in silent era, male actors would impersonate the leading ladies or other female roles in movies ala Dadasaheb Phalke’s directorial debut and India’s first full-length feature film, Raja Harishchandra (1913).

Future Media School in collaboration with Kamalika Banerjee recently presented a memorable evening to Kolkata’s culturatti by felicitating two living legendary luminaries Janardan Nandi and Chapal Bhaduri and screening a movie called Chena Kintu Ojana on the subject. Helmed by Dipankar Datta and researched, written and produced by Debojeet Majumder, the film traces the life and times of the erstwhile ‘queens’ or ‘ranis’ of folk-theatre world. Christened as Future Footprints Obhijatra, the unconventional event hosted at Kolkata’s ICCR revived the journey of a generation of people who defied all stereotypes, challenged their gender and converted their performance-oriented art into something unique and worth appreciating. Their pains and perseverance to slip into another gender with voice modulation, change in posture, mannerisms and attitude is a sheer revelation.

Conceptualised by arts personality. Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee, the rare initiative was to pay homage to androgyny in performing arts and sing paeans to those unsung heroes from the theatre world who proudly portrayed women on stage in Bengal.

Eminent music scholar and vocalist Devajit Bandyopadhyay who set the mood with an engaging session of jatra songs featuring the unparalleled queens elucidates that “the ranis ofjatra and stage-dramas reigned supreme on Bengal’s natya-manch for centuries till the early quarter of the last century. It’s an old artform and could be clearly tracked down in the chronicles of theatrical history on this side of the map. The only hitch was that the adult males lacked emotion in their song expressions. So the period of 19th century is absolutely remarkable in this respect as young teenage boys with undeveloped adolescent voices were used to croon melodies and act like women on stage”. This was evident from the plays of Michael Madhusudan Dutta, the very popular 19th-century Bengali poet and dramatist, Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee, also a noted Indian barrister and the first president of Indian National Congress and ace musician-musicologist Krishnadhan Bandyopadhyay who wrote a famously significant book on music titled Gitasutrasar. He in fact had rendered his maiden performance, as the eponymous Sharmistha at Belgachhiya Theatre and till date stands tall as one of the key important personalities, having introduced new trends in Bangla music. Queens like Laka Rani, Chobi Rani , Harigopal Rani, Janardan Rani, Chapal Rani, Satadal Rani , the gorgeous Satyabala, Upen Rani, et al were creating magic in open-air folk dramas as their contemporary matinee idols of yesteryears on the silver screen.

Incidentally, some of them were reckoned as indispensable thespians, their beauty became the talk of town and were even fantasised as objects of desire. Many would be mistaken as real women and would unbelievably face threats of abduction. But all was not forever hunky-dory as the coin has two sides. They were often targeted for their offbeat occupation and jeered at for impersonating women and their delicate characteristics. But worse came when their glory started to wane with the flourish of fairer sex as the leading ladies in theatre. Though many had tried to survive by shifting gears to doing odd jobs or even resorting to other avenues like selling small wares or vending nuts and fried fritters from food stalls but some succumbed to the mounting monetary crisis and also failed to tolerate anonymity away from glamour and the arc-lights. Few had joined managerial ranks at the jatra companies or to sing with the orchestra. Chapal Rani landed up with a job at the railways for his unusual profession. A handful of them was also relegated to the transgender community and were even misconstrued as homosexuals.

Earlier plays were enacted within the aristocratic households at their spacious courtyards ofnat mandirs, largely patronized by noblemen and the upper echelons of society since 1795. It was ignominious for women to then descend as theatre actors on stage. Hence either young men or lower class neighbourhood women were roped in to do the honours of enacting female protagonist’s roles.

E.g. Bidyasundar, a very well-known play written by Bharat Chandra in medieval Bengal, was staged by Nabin Chandra Basu in 1835 on his Shyambazar home theatre floor. An amateur company of both sexes presented the play at his residence which saw the unfolding of a dramatised version of an episode in Bharat Chandra’s Annada Mangal. It was only in 1872 that another illustrious work Nildarpan was staged by selling tickets to the commoners through a public board. Later, theatrical troupes ran by men mushroomed in several vicinities and among them Gopal Chandra Das aka Gopal Ure grabbed attention with his stellar etching out of Malini’s character on the natya-manch. In fact he was instrumental in suggesting Jyotirindranath Tagore to commence Jorasanko Theatre. Another notable queen was “rasaraj” (king of humour) Amritalal Basu who acted as a female in Sairindri in 1872. He emerged strikingly with his steadfast focus and talent in dramatic acting and was highly applauded for his skilled execution level.

In the following year, prima donnas like Jagattarini, Sukumari, Elokeshi followed with the stalwart Noti Binodini in 1874 made a foray in Bengali theatre to challenge their male counterparts in essaying the feminine parts. While girls started playing girls’ role on one hand, Binodini Dasi played Mahaprabhu Chaitanya in the reputed theatre practitioner Girish Chandra Ghosh’s Chaitanya Leela. Hers was like a drag king’s stance. And competitor Raj Krishna Roy continued to launch boys in female characters from the opposite end of the table. Curiously enough, when theatre only existed in oral form with no recorded document to fall back on, then the spiritual teacher Sri Chaitanya had himself played Rukmini in the theatrical spectacle of Rukmini Haran (The abduction of the Charming Rukmini) from Lord Krishna’s life story. So it could be neatly concluded that the gamut of musical theatre dwells on the plinth of a 500-yearold history and that both men and women exchanged gender roles in the process.

“Folk theatre as the name suggests was primarily showcased across villages and therefore urban life never got a wind of its taste and flavor before. Gradually it penetrated the city-zones and for almost 200 years now, regaling the theatre-loving audiences,” informs Bandyopadhyay.

“Gender fluidity and queer arts should be talked about more openly today and the journey has just begun for me by revisiting these queens,” affirms curator Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee at the culmination of the programme.