Step sisters

A case in point,Bhushan Korgaonkar,a chartered accountant with a media organisation,who six years ago,went to watch a performance by Maya Khutegaokar,a 32-year-old Lavni performer. While Maya danced to the song Icha kaai haai tumchi Whats on your mind? Bhushan got thinking. Growing up as a Maharashtrian,I used to hate lavni and tamasha. I would find it cheap and vulgar. I used to feel sorry that this is our culture,while south Indians had the elegant Bharatnatyam and Carnatic music. Then somewhere I happened to see a performance by Maya Khutegaonkar,an eminent name in sangeet bari a term used for a segment in tamasha-lavani,it literally means to perform to music. And my perspective changed. I realised the pain and the charm of this art form.

Korgaonkar recently produced a documentary film on lavni dancers,titled Natale TumchyasaathiBehind The Adorned Veil,directed by Savitri Medhatul. The film holds a mirror to the dwindling audiences,the green rooms and the women behind the erotic gestures. When the dancer looks into your eyes it is a different feeling altogether. It feels like she is dancing only for you. The first time I saw Mohanabai performingshe made me sit in her room and performed an unknown song ,Bhar Jhopechya Amalamadhe My lover arrives when I am asleepher expressions were so direct that I got embarrassed. Korgaonkar also met other superstars of lavni,Varsha Sangamnerkar,Priyanka Shetty,Akansksha Kadam and Megha Ghadge,for the film.

The women mostly come from the Kolhati,Kalwat and Dombari communities of Maharashtra. There is no formal traning for the dance form and it is passed on from one generation to another. They perform to over 10,000 lavani songs,some of which were written by anonymous poets and featured in old Marathi films. Some of the noted lyricists were Shahir Patthe Bapurao,Ram Joshi,Amar Sheikh and Honaji Bala.

While the lavni dancer gives her interpretation to each song,the songs are mostly a tease. Thats part of the reason for the perception that if you are a lavani dancer,you are not of good character. Korgaonkar recounts how Mohanabai flinches from sitting near women on buses or trains. If the co-passenger is a man and acts smart,she knows how to yell at him. But if a lady is sitting next to her,she will ask her a hundred questions about her personal life, he says.

Another example citied is of Megha Ghadge,a Marathi film actor who also performs in lavni banner shows,which last 2.5- 3 hours,with around with 17-18 songs. In the film,Ghadge speaks about how scared she is to perform in interior parts of the state where there is a huge crowd. Once a drunkard threw an empty bottle on stage. Luckily it didnt hit her.
But while they fight it out with the inebriated and vengeful souls,the dancers get ready for a show no matter what the costs. Earlier lavni used to be loaded with satire,talk about politics. Now it has become more about sheer entertainment, says Shirish Shete,chief photographer with Press Trust of India,who has spent over nine years taking pictures of lavni dancers. It took a whole night at the theatre in a village called Chowphula,Pune to get Shete hooked. He says,

I started with a few pictures for magazines,but then I went for a show and was fascinated. They offered me food,which was as spicy as their fiery dance. I felt flattered being in the company of beautiful women who were so kind, says Shete who came out with a book titled Dancing Maidens,in 2007.
Shetes black and white pictures take you into a world of lavni dancers where the tiny green rooms reflect the low fees offered by villagers,a life in debt where children are dragged around from one show to the other,and above all the dance formthe tamashanot being considered an art at all,but as just low-class entertainment.

But some of the dancers have it good. Especially as text in the book hints that the dancers have powerful politicians and sugar barons as their admirers and earn enough to have comfortable lives. Shete has also followed the dancers and their troupes to smaller performances in villages around Maharashtra. People used to often ask me Why do you follow these women? They dont understand when I tell them that this is Maharashtras true folk dance form,and we shouldnt be looking down on these artists. It is amazing how these women teach each other and manage their lives around the meagre fees they get for dance shows, says Shete.

Though there has even been a Bin Baykancha Tamasha,a troupe of men dressed like women who perform the lavni,that was no competition for the women troupes. The men dress up and try real hard to be like the women dancers. Sometimes they even do a better job, says Korgaonkar. Shete,however,thinks only women do it best. They are smart women who are also very,very sexy, he says.