HYDERABAD: A bright moon continues to shine on the ruins of Deccan history even though its brightness gets shadowed behind moth-eaten pages more often than not. This bright moon is ‘Madame Moon Cheek’ herself known better as Maha or Mah Laqa Bai Chanda: a brilliant poet, fine dancer, patron of arts whose political counsel was sought even by second Nizam and his prime minister Aristu Jah her patron.
Though in Tinsel Town there have been portraiture of famous Indian courtesans like Umrao Jan Ada and Amrapali from the times gone by, given they excelled in arts, poetry and tehzeeb, unfortunately Deccan’s Moon hasn’t caught the attention of filmmakers even when there have been several books written about her, the latest being Scott Kugle’s ‘When Sun Meets Moon’. It was theatre which brought the poet-dancer on stage through the script of Oudhesh Rani Bawa as a monologue that Mah Laqa delivers herself. It was staged by Sutradhar at Lamakaan recently.
Mah Laqa (b.1768) was, arguably, the first woman to publish her divan in Urdu comprising only ghazals that are not just full of romanticism but deep enough to contain the fountain of mysticism given she called herself ‘a slave-girl of Hazrat Ali’. Born to Raj Kanvar Bai, who belonged to the family of nomad-singers from Gujarat, she was raised by her half-sister Mahtab Kanvar Bai who was married to Rukn Al Dawla, a nobleman in the court of Nizam.
That’s how Mah Laqa, born Chanda Bibi, was raised in an aristocratic manner learning Persian language, classical music, horse-riding and even archery. She wrote fine Urdu poetry under the tutelage of her instructor Khush-hal Khan. Actor Ratika Sant Keswani mentioned the splendour showered on her saying, “Chhatti ki khichdi haathhiyon par aayi thhi” which means that food for her birth rituals was carried on the back of elephants.
The one-hour long monologue didn’t get monotonous and the artiste’s deliverance of tough Urdu dialogues seemed to come easy. Her olive green ensemble, teamed with opulent pearl jewellery, as was the fashion in those days, added to the visage of the era she belonged to as she gyrated to the music being played in the background. There was an addition of wit also as she mocked the dancing style of the British ruing that if these goras danced only with their wives what would happen to the state patronisation of art, dance and music. She, quite skillfully, changed the course of her dialogues to the rising influence of British troops in Nizam’s kingdom while the French were kept at an arm’s length.
This piece of diplomatic knowledge itself assures her stronghold in Nizam’s court along with the counsel she gave in political matters. With her immense wealth, jagir bestowed on her by Nizam combined with her peerless beauty, she had to play the honey-trap, seize male attention, sustain, captivate and manipulate for diplomatic benefits to her aristocratic patrons.
The actor while taking the audience on a brief historic trip breaks down, fiddles with a chess-board, picks up a pawn and calls herself one. There at this moment the audience see her standing on the border that blazes between light and darkness and it’s difficult to ascertain how as a courtesan in pre-modern South Asia she survived, as despite her wealth, poetic prowess and noble status she was not accepted as ‘the one among them’. Ratika was quick to compose her fractured self. Maybe this is how Mah Laqa Bai Chanda also composed herself during emotional turbulence of both a woman and an artist.
Lutf-Un-Nissa Imtiyaz, another 18th century Urdu poet overshadowed her as findings revealed that she and not Mah Laqa wrote the first divan. “Later, author Kugle was interested in her story and began to enquire about her for his book,” shared the writer Oudhesh Rani Bawa. But Mah Laqa rose again from behind clouds finding her way in several writings. She was the champion for young child-girls and is said to have kept aside a huge sum of `10,000,000 for their education; the Board of Intermediate and Govt Girls College in Nampally is said to be her part of erstwhile jagir.
The actor again played this brilliantly, mentioning two girls she adopted by the name of Hasin Laqa and Husn Laqa and trained them in arts and music. The play comes to an end with Mah Laqa raising her hands for the young girls in the world, while the huge candle stand kept in the background gets dim much like the dark times women have seen throughout the course of history.