Ki sambandha hoibe takhon he? : Locating Nachnis in the Societal Margins of Kinship in Rural Bengal

Introduction

When Rajuabala Devi, a famous nachni, died under a tree in rural Purulia in the summer of 2006, none of her kin was present at the funeral. Sitting in a building constructed by a non-governmental organization (NGO) for elderly nachnis, Phulanbala, another nachni, recounts Rajuabala’s circumstances:

When her rasik died, all his property was taken by his brother. When there was a village market in Chhoto Urma she would go there and beg. There is a mohul tree inside the market where she died. The people of Chhoto Urma tied a rope to her feet and threw her body into a dump yard near the railway tracks. ¹ She was a nachni. Who would have touched her? That’s why instead of carrying her on their shoulders they dumped her body.

Rajuabala Devi could once gather a crowd within minutes, but since the death of her rasik, ² Kartik Tantubai, she could not manage even a single meal a day. Since she had been abandoned by the rasik’s family, she could not be cared for, even though her married daughter had a stable job. She survived by begging. In July 2006, a social worker travelled from Kolkata to meet Rajuabala and then heard that she had died under the tree where she used to beg and her body dumped near the tracks. This incident was reported in both the local newspapers and the national magazines and efforts were taken to stop the practice of nachni nach. ³ This is how, for example, the weekly journal Outlook summed up Rajuabala’s case:

Rajuabala Devi was a nachni, a dancing girl, and treated in life the same way as in death. Spread over Purulia and neighbouring districts in the states of Jharkhand and Orissa, nachnis are bonded sex slaves of their masters—known as rasiks—throughout their productive lives. They have no rights, are excluded from social and religious events and denied a decent funeral. Their children are treated worse than bastards. The life of a nachni has changed little over the five centuries that this practice has existed—living in free India means nothing to them. ⁴

This article emerges from research conducted by Saloka Sengupta in 2014‒2015 in the Purulia district of West Bengal, and it is written jointly with Haripriya Narasimhan. When Saloka Sengupta asked nachnis about the death of Rajuabala, they disclaimed all knowledge of a nachni abused and disrespected in such a way and argued that the babus (intellectuals) of Kolkata used such images in the media to ‘sell’ news. Some informants said that although such ill treatment of the dead and neglecting to bury them was a practice in the past, it had stopped after the efforts taken by NGOs. Many authors and scholars (Barapanda, 2007; Biswas, 2003; Mazumdar, 2014; Munsi, 2016) have referred to this practice and a few have mentioned it in interviews conducted during field work.

In this article, we look at how the nachnis struggle to forge and maintain bonds of kinship. By looking at the everyday lives of nachnis and the ways in which they engage with the concept of family, we argue that the realities of their lives as performing artists act as impediments in forming normative kinship relations. The complex relationship of the nachni with her rasik cannot be reduced to the simple, inaccurate concept of ‘sex slave’ as outlined in the popular press. There is no easy label for this relationship, and what also interested us were the secondary relationships radiating from this essentially ambiguous and liminal nature of a nachni’s life.

Peletz (1995), in an exhaustive review, pointed out the lack of discussion on the ambivalent nature of kinship. Kinship in India has been written extensively by Karve (1990) and Madan (2015). With respect to Bengal, Inden and Nicholas (2005) conceived of Bengali Hindu kinship as a ‘cultural system’ that is modified by marriage and they concluded by saying how ‘body’ and ‘body-related substance’ play key roles in Bengali kinship. Barnett, Fruzzetti, and Östör (1995) similarly discussed ‘persons’ who are ‘culturally constructed as relatives (attiya-kutum) through blood and marriage in Bengal’. Lamb (2000), looking at rural Bengal, highlighted the notion of maya in samsar. The push and pull of maya demonstrate how relationships are not only dependent on ‘blood’ or ‘relatedness’ but also built at a deeper level. ⁵ The same aspect is visible in Tenhunen’s (2003) understanding of politics and kinship in Bengal. Donner (2008), speaking of the middle classes in Kolkata, described popular media representations of kinship foregrounding love and marriage. In light of the vast literature available on kinship in Bengal, we argue that the nachnis’ struggle to carve a space for themselves within the social structure points to the futility of looking at kinship as defined simply by ‘blood’ or ‘marriage’. ⁶ The nachnis’ case points to the need to redefine our understanding of kinship, which is largely derived from upper-caste and middle-class ideologies, particularly in Bengal.

Chatterji’s (2009) book, Writing Identities, is among the first on Purulia written with authority and craftsmanship. On nachni shalya jhumur, or nachni nach, she said that ‘[I]t bridges the gap between the mundane sensuousness that is supposed to be a feature of tribal life and a cultivated erotic sentiment that is part of the Indian theory of aesthetics’ (Chatterji, 2009, pp. 64‒65). Chatterji (2009) and Chakravarti (2001) said that nachni nach and chho dance developed under the patronage of tribal zamindars.

Munsi (2016, p. 159) gave a thorough description of the performance and social aspects of nachnis and stated that the denial of the nachnis’ basic rights, such as conjugal relationships, property and even ritual cremation, points to their ‘precarious existence’. She also talked about the position of women performers and how they make a living:

The precarity for Nachni lies in the very fact that she needs to constantly work on her capacity to maximize the effect of her presence only by means of her appearance, appeal and performance―because, as soon as she ceases to be able to generate and control her power to ‘hold’ the audience, she is redundant in the eyes of the society―and even in the eyes of her only so-called social connection, that is the rasik.

Contrary to the argument made by Munsi that a nachni’s only social connection is her rasik who occasionally have other ‘connections’ too, for instance with other nachnis, paramours and even officials. But the rasik becomes the focal point of a nachni’s kinship transaction with the larger society. ⁷ None of the relations, however, present a ‘meaningful social connection’ (such as blood, marriage or ideology) on which the concept of Bengali kinship is based. Even though ‘fictive kinship’ is present in Bengal and other parts of India, the nachnis are seen as prostitutes, not worthy of bonds of kinship.

Kinship ‘Structure’ Among Nachnis

Nachnis had usually been either abandoned or sold by their families as children, abducted or, in some cases, had eloped with a rasik. A nachni does not undergo any ritual that can be termed as ‘marriage’ as it is understood in Bengal. She just starts living with a male partner, the rasik, with whom she performs the nachni nach. She begins to apply vermillion in the parting of her hair to signify that she now has a partner. Her partner’s contribution to a nachni’s life is varied; sometimes he trains her in music and dance, at other times he acts like a manager and books concerts or performances. He also performs with her on stage by singing or playing the harmonium and may even provide her with a place to live, usually on the margins of his own dwelling.

Rasiks are usually married. It is very rare for a nachni to effect a relationship with an unmarried man. Nachnis have sexual relations with their rasiks and bear progeny. The children, however, are not considered members of the rasik’s patrilineage. They are not allowed to perform funerary rites for the rasik or any member of his family. A nachni wears the bangles worn by married women in Bengal (shaka pola), but she cannot break them in the ritual of a wife upon the death of her husband. The rasik’s wife and his nachni do not speak to each other. The wife does not recognize the nachni at all, either as a mistress or a co-wife. She is not even a ‘half-wife’ to quote (Agarwal, 2008, p. 112).

A rasik may spend more time with a nachni than with his wife. He may also have more than one nachni, though rarely at the same time. In that sense, there is serial monogamy. He may eat and sleep in the nachni’s house or dwelling, which is usually a shack with very minimal utensils, but she can never be accorded the status of a wife. The nachnis do not recall any of them, no matter how feisty, managing to obtain rights to property.

Rasiks rarely spend time with the children they have through their nachnis. The nachnis’ children, if female, are married out and usually live away from their mothers. Nachnis are rarely involved in their daughters’ marriages. These ‘marriages’ are sometimes enabled by migration to other states, under the excuse of work. The daughters no doubt suffer abuse even as they try to get away from it in their natal homes. A survey done by Barapanda (2007) in Purulia found that not one of the 50 nachnis surveyed wished a future as a nachni for their daughters, although stable jobs are hard to come by in these areas. ⁸ Some sons of nachnis go on to become rasiks. In the rare instances of an unmarried rasik spending his entire life with a nachni, neither his family nor the larger society accorded her the status of a wife.

Given this ‘kinship’ arrangement of a nachni’s life, is the nachni a ‘victim’ or an ‘agent’ (Agarwal, 2008, p. 8)? A rasik cannot exist without a nachni. A troupe goes by the name of the nachni, and in most cases it is the nachni who decides the performance schedule. But her everyday living and finances are controlled by the rasik. It is within these constrained conditions that the nachnis imagine, and try to live, the life of a ‘good wife’ (Seizer, 2005, p. 226), with the semblance of a family and a partner. Our study shows that the relationship between a nachni and her rasik is often tenuous. A nachni can initiate or terminate a relationship with a rasik (Munsi, 2016, p. 174). A nachni is known to have got a brick house (or a small portion of it) built by one rasik, only to move in with another rasik. So, it is not only the nachni who fears being replaced. The rasik also fears being replaced, especially when the nachni is young, attractive and a good performer. In the case of the rasik the fear is financial, whereas for a nachni it is primarily about being lonely and lacking a family. A rasik and a nachni may have ‘a long-term stable relation’ (Agarwal, 2008, p. 69), but it is rare. ⁹

Patronage, Patriarchy and Performance

Performing women in India are subjected to harassment and exploitation, especially if they belong to the lower strata of the society. In his autobiography, Chhohra Kolhati Ka (1997), Kishore Shantabai Kala, the son of a lavani tamasha dancer, portrayed the challenging lives of dancers and their children. ¹¹ Lavani flourished as popular entertainment for the bahujan ¹² and was patronized by the court of Bajirao II. Lavani artists were expected to be adulterous and thus this art form was also ‘an ideological justification of the enslavement of women of the lower castes’ (Rege, 1995, p. 28).

Similarly, nachni shalya jhumur was patronized by landlords in the Manbhum region which later became known as Purulia, ¹³ now a part of the state of Jharkhand. ¹⁴ The Adivasi ¹⁵ community living in the region practised simple yet popular love songs (Bhattacharya, 2014). In the beginning of the 17th century, the Mallarajas of Vishnupur converted to Vaishnavism, following which Vaishnav literature, particularly songs about Radha and Krishna, became influential in this area. The zamindars and court poets invested their economic resources and skills in nurturing this form of music, and thus was born ‘jhumur’. ¹⁶ The singers, lyricists and composers, along with dancers, presented jhumur in the courts of local samantas, zamindars or kings. Training was given by the rasik, and jhumur singers were eligible to become rasiks. Many well-to-do peasants of Bengal and Jharkhand would maintain nachnis as mistresses. To have a nachni as a companion was a sign of status among feudal landlords. ¹⁷ Concubines or mistresses of kings and zamindars were ‘nachnis’. ¹⁸

Following the ‘permanent settlement’, ¹⁹ the position of the feudal lords slowly faded away. They were unable to support nachnis. Those nachnis who voluntarily maintained themselves as professional dancers became social outcasts. Despite the shame imposed on them, they did their best to keep alive the tradition of jhumur, which was one of the few occupations open to women in the region. ²⁰

Learning nachni nach requires years of practice. The women who come to learn this dance form, usually from poor families, say that jhumur songs cast a spell on them that is hard to resist. Many leave their homes in order to join a ‘master’ (ustad) and learn layas and ragas and raginis. They are ostracized by their families, some of whom even observe kaman (rituals for the dead) for the women who become nachnis.

In Purulia, nachnis belong to the lower castes. They have titles such as Mahato, Singh, Sahis and Sardar (Chakravarti, 2001). It is also possible that some of them are drawn from the local indigenous population of Bhumij, Santhal, Munda and Oraon. But most informants Saloka Sengupta met claimed to belong to lower caste groups. Even if the kinship structure of these caste groups has been studied in detail, it would be mostly on the basis of kinship terminologies, and therefore the studies on upper castes conducted by Inden and Nicholas (2005) will have to be relied on for a more meaningful discussion on kinship.

Chatterji suggested that nachni shalya jhumur bridges the gap between the tribal way of living and the ‘cultivated erotic sentiment’ (2009, p. 65), which also represents the classical North Indian dance tradition developed by the baijis. (Interestingly, nachnis are also called bai.) Munsi (2016) added that the nachni is present in society not through her societal identity (which is considered derogatory) but through her performance. The ethnographic description of a performance in the following section presents the sociocultural context in which jhumur takes place.

A Nachni Performance

Saloka Sengupta is seeing her first nachni nach in Gopalpara ²¹ village. A stage, a wooden platform, is set in the middle of a field. Small shops selling sweets, papad, beedi and paan appear. Away from the field, one can see the dim lights where mohua (liquor made from mohua fruit) and haria (rice beer) are sold.

Some people in the audience are already intoxicated and dance to the loud music playing from the stage. Rama, an older nachni accompanying Saloka Sengupta, does not think that these are jhumur songs but ranger gaan (colourful/newer generation songs with beats and bawdy lyrics). The audience are informed that the nachnis have arrived in the village nearby and are waiting for the stage to get it ready. The exact arrival of the nachnis is kept secret to avoid people flocking around them.

Suddenly, men of all ages surround a car to get a glimpse of the nachnis ²² who sit inside until the start of the show. The ambience of the mela changes once the nachnis arrive. People cross fields in the dark with children sleeping on their shoulders to see the performance. Some cover their heads with a gamchha (towel) and smile. There are very few women. Some men are so drunk even before the show begins that they have fallen off to sleep. The crowd cheers as the nachni gets on to the stage. She sits patiently, wearing a pink woollen shawl over a pink saree, while the microphones are arranged. As an introductory piece, the troupe play on their instruments. The crowd cheers again, the music becomes louder and the bright lights, loud music and smell of alcohol create an exuberant atmosphere in the midst of the darkness.

More nachni troupes arrive and the nachnis perform in turn. Volunteers keep the audience in control. Rudraa, a rasik, says, ‘Look at these people. They have worked hard in the fields the entire day. This is the time they have fun and fulfil their desires’. The audience request popular bawdy songs and come to the stage to give feri. ²³ The nachnis place the money collected in this way on the harmonium to indicate that it will be divided among the rasik and the instrument players. The rasiks decide whether the nachni has to get any of the feri money given by the audience.

Rama dozes off at times on the stage; at other times, she laughs hysterically at the drunk audience who offer 100-rupee notes as feri and exclaims, ‘These people are so drunk that they don’t realize they are offering a 100-rupee note instead of ₹10. They’ll realize only in the morning when they get back home’. Rama is about 60 years old and still performs, but as the demand is for younger women she does not get many requests. When the last nachni begins her performance, it is already dawn and half the crowd has left. The alcohol sellers make arrangements to walk back to their village. Two nachnis wait in their respective cars for the rasik to return. He has gone with friends to drink. ‘No one offers a glass of water to a nachni after she is done performing, forget the drink’, says one when asked why she is alone.

The desire to see the nachnis perform fades as morning approaches. People get ready to go to work. The nachnis sit alone, hungry, tired, in anticipation of the promised payment from the organizers and waiting to get back to their children.

Contrast Between the Day and Night Life of a Performing Artist

In the vignette produced earlier, was the nachni, at the centre of attention during the night but forgotten by the audience in the daytime, a manifestation of the stigma surrounding her? If so, what temporal forms do stigmas about a performing woman take? ²⁴ The sharp contrast between the day and night images of nachnis is striking. Nachnis before and during the performance are the most sought after by everyone in the audience. But once a performance ends, the nachni is literally at the mercy of the rasik, the audience and important patrons. All she can do is to wait for her money and, if possible, for the rasik to accompany her home. Usually, it is only she going back to her children alone. ²⁵ The rasik will accompany friends to drink or talk and may then come to the nachni’s home at night, or may spend time with his wife and children, but not with the nachni.

None of the villagers, who so eagerly showered 10-rupee notes the night before, would invite her for morning tea or some rice, otherwise a common practice in rural Bengal. The cynosure of all eyes at night, the same woman is no longer appreciated during the day, at times even by the rasik. Although the nachni is the main focus on stage, even more important than the rasik, ²⁶ during the day she is a nobody, and she goes about her routine, waiting for information on the next programme which is fixed by the rasik.

Unlike other artists, nachnis rarely rehearse with rasiks before a performance; nor do they perform easily for strangers or researchers who want them to demonstrate a piece. The nachnis are conscious of how they are perceived as performing artists. They wish to adhere to patriarchal norms of ‘good women’, just as the special drama artists did in Seizer’s study. They emphasize their wife-like status whenever possible. In a similar vein, Hansen (1992, p. 23), who has studied the nautanki art form of North India, said:

Since the social construction of gender places ‘good women’ in seclusion, women who appear in public spaces (such as on stage) are defined as ‘bad’, that is, prostitutes. Subjected to the gaze of many men, they belong not to one, like the loyal wife, but to all.

Seizer (2010), looking at women in special drama in Tamil Nadu, talked about how performing women automatically get categorized as ‘bad’ because they are exposed to the ‘gaze’ of men outside their families. The performers and the audience belong to the lower strata and the women performers have often chosen this road due to extreme poverty.

Like the women dancers of art forms such as lavani, nautanki and special drama, nachnis carry a ‘triple burden’, being women, lower caste and/or class and public performers. From impoverished areas and with no form of accessible employment, nachnis aspire to close family ties to overcome adversity. However, such ties also remain out of reach, as is demonstrated in the examples in the following section.

Making and Breaking Kin

One of the most important places to get information in Purulia is the teashop located beside the bus stop. Its mud walls roofed in thatch and with a few benches for customers, the shop is plastered with the posters of local theatres. The owner waits in a corner with a range of sweets and hot tea for customers who also come for the daily newspaper. Tickets for nachni nach used to be sold at the teashop. Now, in the age of mobile phones, the rasik only has to call the organizer, fix a rate and collect the advance. Folk performers, who include nachnis, as well as writers, journalists, schoolteachers and folk and culture enthusiasts frequent the shop. News of upcoming performances, the performers and rumours of their personal lives are discussed. One lazy afternoon, a nachni who stays nearby came running to the shop, saying that another nachni, Pabitra, was leaving her rasik and eloping with another man. Her rasik was believed to have taken good care of her, so this was seen as a bad move. ‘Put some sense into her head. She is a fool to leave the rasik’s house’, said the nachni Rama.

Pabitra, in her 30s, lived in a concrete house (rare among nachnis) beside the main road with her rasik and infant son. The house had a common area (with a colour TV and a cot), a small corner partitioned off into a room-like space and a kitchen. The rasik, a young and handsome man, spoke proudly of being from a family of zamindars and of taking good care of Pabitra, one of the most popular nachnis of the region. Then, why did she leave the rasik?

Pabitra did not have links with her natal family. Interactions with her indicated that she had had a tough childhood in her maternal uncle’s home. The rasik was already married and had a daughter before he started living with Pabitra. Later, Pabitra mentioned that the rasik built the house for her on the outskirts of the village because his family had refused to allow her to stay at the village house in which his wife was living. No one from the rasik’s family acknowledged the nachni or her 2-year-old son who did not understand why he was not allowed in his father’s home.

But staying with a rasik’s family does not necessarily spell happiness for a nachni. In many cases, nachnis end up providing for the rasiks and their families financially, while enduring constant humiliation and subjugation. In the lives of nachnis and their relationship with the families of their rasiks, the persisting source of tension is the latter’s unstable financial situation. Blood kin would reject nachnis fearing ostracism by neighbours and other relatives, but rasiks and their families shun nachnis, treating them as ‘untouchables’. A nachni’s income would be used for, in one case, the repair of the rasik’s house although the nachni was made to live out in a shack, or in another case, for the wedding of the rasik’s daughter while the nachni’s own daughter was sold (by the rasik’s family) for the money.

Many nachnis grew up in their maternal relatives’ homes or were abandoned by their parents, never experiencing close family ties. From a very young age, they have supported themselves through work. Some of them live, albeit in seclusion, in their rasik’s house once their performing days are over, but most live in uncertainty.

Phulanbala Devi, mentioned at the start of this article, ²⁷ claimed that she did not know that her rasik was a married man with two sons. Eventually, the wife filed a case against the rasik in court, and it was Phulanbala’s earnings that helped pay the legal expenses. The rasik’s properties were confiscated by his sons and estranged wife. Phulanbala had nowhere to turn to when the rasik’s family threw her out of the house. In her early 50s, she currently holds the position of secretary in an organization for the betterment of the lives of artists in the region. She is thus able to live at the samiti’s office-cum-research centre near the town. ²⁸ There is no steady source of income and, being ill, she cannot perform like she once did.

In another instance of a nachni leaving a rasik, it was after he asked her not to have a child. Basantibala was at the peak of her career and, as a nachni, was considered one of the most beautiful and skilful. She wanted a child but her rasik did not agree. He forced her to perform night after night. Eventually, she ran away with a man who promised that she could have a child, and so the rasik shamed her parents into giving him their other daughter, who had to submit to the decision just to give her sister a future.

Perhaps we will never know why Pabitra left her rasik, and there could have been several reasons. The rasik may have been abusive, alcoholic or in a relation with another nachni. His family or the neighbours may have subjected her to the immense pain and rejection faced by all the nachnis mentioned earlier. There may have been little reason for Pabitra to remain in the rasik’s house, and so even though she would have been aware of the humiliation awaiting her if her current lover also rejected her after a while, she chose to leave the rasik. ²⁹

Conclusion

The nachnis’ lives documented here show that they exist on the margins of society in rural Bengal, even in the literal sense. Their homes are tiny shacks situated either at the edge of the village or separated from their partner rasiks’ house. Kept apart from the rasik’s family, his parents, siblings and relatives, the nachni lives a nearly invisible life. She comes into being at night, when most of the village is asleep, especially the ‘good wives’. As a performer, she is desired on stage and off, in the darkness. When the sun comes out, the audience have gone, the rasik is off somewhere and she is alone, waiting to return to her children.

As Abraham (2010, p. 214) argued, the nachnis do not have any rights in the domestic life of the rasik; nor does the domestic space bring a sense of agency or security. As Agarwal (1995) and Rao (2018) discussed in detail about the women having less control over land and property, they do not have access to the rasik’s property. Nachnis have no rights over their own income, which they earn by performing nachni nach. Throughout their lives, they are treated neither as wives nor as artists, ³⁰ even if the rasik is estranged from his family. The children of nachnis do not appear to have rights over their father’s property. Nachnis do not have close ties to their natal kin, as most of them are sold by their own families or abandoned.

Nachnis are not extraordinary women. They are in fact ordinary rural women trapped in extraordinary situations. ³¹ Similar to the description offered by Jeffery and Jeffery (2019, p. 4) of the everyday lives of rural women in North India, it was found that nachnis were

[T]ied to social structures, yet their lives were not completely determined by them. They were affected by global as well local forces beyond their control, but they also tried to shape their own fate. Their options were not totally closed, nor were they completely open.

In her work on Karnataka’s devadasis, Ramberg (2014) said that, according to Morgan (1870), ‘kinship’ is not a natural fact but a ‘human achievement’. This supports the argument that, across boundaries, family in all its different formulations and shapes is neither natural nor given. Ramberg (2014, p. 193) also spoke of the ‘forms of social death’ that marriage produces. The nachnis are not exactly married, but their partnership with the rasik brings a social detachment from building relationships, its effects seen not only in life but even after they are dead.

The nachnis are plagued with the question of where they belong and whether they belong at all, as well as who will accord them status. From the life histories discussed earlier, we see an absence of relatives/kin and yet kinship can bring more liabilities and hardship for the nachnis. Similar views were expressed by Kapadia (1995) in discussing lower-caste Tamil women who realize that often it is men’s interests which get priority in a family rather than the women’s. This is why she calls attention to the Tamil proverb, ‘kinship burns’ (Kapadia, 1995, p. 43), its hidden subtext revealing the discourse of fear and frustration brought on by close kin.

The case studies described here in detail lay bare the perilous situation of the nachnis. Sought after for their talent, and patronized as a source of art and entertainment, they experience some fame and popularity. However, in their everyday lives, they confront indifference, abandonment, stigma, seclusion and discrimination at the hands of their natal families as well as from those with whom they willingly forge relationships. It seems that they go from one rasik to another, from one place to another, all in an effort to gain some semblance of a notional family of the sort that scholars have written about widely, in reference to Bengali understanding of family (Inden & Nicholas, 2005). That aim, however, proves elusive. At the end of the day, nachnis are seen as ‘performing women’ and that alone defines the limits of their access to kinship. These limits are at times literal, as in the case of the nachni who lives separately from her rasik and his family and, more painfully, in the case of Rajuabala, with whose story this essay began. To have kin (a daughter and a rasik) and yet be denied a ‘proper’ burial, hers is the story that encapsulates the burdens that nachni women are destined to bear, even as they try again and again to create a family.

Rama often sings when travelling, and one of her songs aptly described the status of the nachnis in the Bengali framework of family and kinship. Although written by a male poet, it uncovers the pain and suffering of a nachni and her exclusion from society:

Manoniyo gurujon

Bhai bondhu bhognigon

Sobar e nikote nibedon

Nachni nach habe aj

Tai toh bosechhe somaj

Bhul truti koribe marjon he

Suno suno sobhajon

Ami korojore kori nibedon

Kul shil jati samaj

Sajilam je bai-saj

Ei manche nachibo ekhon he

Karnetey karo shraban

Nayane karo darshan

Antarey bhab bhujoho apon he

Amare heri ruposi

Tomra toh hoiya khusi

Esechho nach koritey darshan he

Bhab sabey antarange

Ki bhab achhe amar sange

K ami tomra kon jon re

Nach bhangile jabe ghar

Ami j hoibo por

Ki sambandha hoibe takhon he

J kore uttore tushto

Mani tare guru ishta

Bhabe bosi Amulyaratan he.

(Source: The song was collected during fieldwork by SS)

Translated by Saloka Sengupta:

Respected elders,

Brothers, friends and sisters,

I humbly request all of you

Nachni nach will happen today.

That’s why the society has commenced.


Please forgive if there are any mistakes and shortcomings.

Listen, oh listen, the members of this society,

I request you with folded hands,

Leaving my clan and family prestige and practice,

I will dance on this stage.

Listen carefully through your ears,

Observe through your eyes,

Deep inside feel the essence of one’s inner significance

Observing the beauty

You have happily come to watch me dance

The essence is intimate.

What is the relation between you and me?

Who am I and who are you?

You will go back home once I finish dancing, I will be a ‘stranger’.

Then what will be my relation with you?

Amulyaratan sits and thinks:

The one who satisfies her with an answer will be considered as the guru.