Unfinished Gestures Quotes

“Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century colonial ethnographies mention Muslim dancing women named as “turku-sanis” who performed in famous mēḷams in the Godavari Delta and also had sexual relations with men from any of the “non-polluting” castes like their Hindu counterparts (Hemingway 1907, 58). They also go to great lengths to demonstrate that the community of “dancing girls” in the region consisted of “both Hindu Bogams and Muhammadan Bogams … and Muhammadan girls are married to a khanjir or dagger” (Ul-Hassan 1920, 91–92).1”
― Davesh Soneji, Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India

“The patronage of devadāsī troupes by Muslims is also found in Qanoon-e-Islam, or the Customs of the Moosulmans of India (Shureef and Herklots 1832, lxxxii). This account notes that mēḷams are generally invited to perform at weddings, and mentions the nutwa (naṭṭuvaṉār) who leads the troupe. Professional dancers in Tanjore also performed in Muslim homes, particularly at the time of marriages. A mid-nineteenth-century painting from Tanjore currently held at the Victoria and Albert Museum (2006AV2428– 01) depicts a Muslim marriage procession led by dancers performing in the “Hindustānī” style. The participation of Tanjore’s devadāsīs in Muslim weddings is also confirmed by musicologist B. M. Sundaram: “In Tanjore, there were some devadāsī dancers who used to give regular performances in the homes of Muslims, whenever marriages take place there. When someone in those Muslim families died, it was a custom for the devadāsī who danced in these homes to gift a goat for the [funerary] meal … It shows a mutual respect, a mutual affinity.” (Sundaram, personal communication)”
― Davesh Soneji, Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India

“Balamani Ammal, born into the kavarai merchant community near Kumbhakonam in Thanjavur district, for example, created the first all-woman theater company in Tamil Nadu in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Along with her sister Rajambal, she led the Balamani Drama Company, which created jobs for a number of disenfranchised devadāsīs at the height of public debates on social reform”
― Davesh Soneji, Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India

“jāvaḷi in Four Languages (caturbhāṣā jāvaḷi)28 Pallavi (refrain): my dear come [English] varuvai [Tamil] ī veḷa [Telugu] Caraṇam (stanza): ninnujūci cāla [Telugu] divasa āyite manna [Kannada] nī nā manasu impaina [Telugu] kālaharaṇamiñca [Telugu] for me now [English] beḷatiṅgaḷu bisallavāyite [Kannada] kuḷuku taḷakugaḷa [Telugu] come [English] birāna [Telugu] well I shall sing [English] Śivarāmuni [Telugu] songs [English]”
― Davesh Soneji, Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India