Umrao Jan Ada: Courtesan of Lucknow (Mirza Mohammad Hadi Ruswa)

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Book Description

Preface

About ten years ago a friend of mine, Munshi Ahmad Husain, who lived somewhere near Delhi paid a visit to Lucknow and rented an upper storey flat in the Chowk, Here a party of friends used to meet in the evenings and pass a few pleasant hours reciting and discussing poetry.

The apartment next to Munshi Ahmad Husains was occupied by a courtesan whose ways were quite different from those of other women of her profession. She was never to be seen on her balcony nor was known to receive any visitors. The windows of her apartment were draped with heavy curtains and the door opening on the main street was always bolted – her servants used the back entrance. There was a window connecting this apartment to Munshi Ahmad Husains but this was also kept shut and secured by an iron bar twisted in the shape of a hoop. Sometimes at night we could hear the voice of a woman singing; that was the only indication that someone lived in the apartment.

One evening, we were as usual reciting ghazals. I recited a couplet, and a soft voice in the neighbouring apartment exclaime.d Wah, Wah! This made us very curious. Munshi Sahib called out loudly: It is no good applauding a poet in this manner; if you are fond of poetry why not honour us with your presence? There was no answer, so we resumed our recitation.

Shortly afterwards, a maid-servant came in and asked, Which of you gentlemen is Mirza Ruswa? My friends pointed to me. Will you please oblige my mistress by having a word with her?

she asked.

May I know who is your mistress?

Pardon me, Sir, but I am not allowed to divulge her identity.

My friends started teasing me; You must have known her quite well at some time or the other, otherwise how could she invite you in this manner? I was still scratching my head trying to place this lady when the maid-servant said, My mistress knows you quite well, Sir. That is why she desires you to visit her.

I had ne choice and accompanied the maid to the next apartment.

The lady turned out to be Umrao Jan whom Ruswa had know well many years before. After the inevitable polite preliminaries, he persuaded her to join a Sitting on the terrace of Munshi Ahmad Husains apartment. This is described by Ruswa in the following words:

It was a moonlit night in summer. Munshi Sahib had had the terrace sprinkled with water to make it cool. Carpets had been spread on the floor and covered with white sheets. Surahis fresh from the potters, fragrant with a smell of earth and fresh water, were lined up on the parapet. The pan leaves had been delicately scented. The stems of hookahs had garlands of flowers twined round them and their smoke pervaded the atmosphere like heady incense. The only light besides that of the moon was a candle flickering in a glass shade, the shama which was placed in front of the poet whose turn it was to recite.

At this session Umrao Jan recited a verse whose last lines were:

Who will listen to the tale of my woeful heart?

Far and wide have I wandered on the face of this earth

And I have much to impart.

The lines incited Mirza Ruswa to ask Umrao Jan to tell him her life story. Umrao Jan narrated it in a series of sittings which were subsequently committed to writing by the author and shown to Umrao Jan before being published.

The name Umrao Jan as well as that of Sultan Sahib appear in an earlier but incomplete novel Afshai Raz. Ruswa salvaged these two names from his abandoned work and in the new novel proceeded to change their characters. The Umrao Jan of AJshai Raz was dark, tall, pock-marked and something of a flirt; she was also said to have been a tolerable dancer but a bad singer. Umrao Jan Ada of this novel, although only passably attractive, is a woman of culture, with great charm of manner and with a reputation as a singer. It is quite obvious that Ruswa was enamoured of her Personality and voice. In a quotation printed on the title page of the book his heroine demands a true and faithful reproduction of her character:

She who hath robbed my reason now smiles and says:

Let my portrait be as good as my face.

Mirza Ruswa did not believe in creating characters that did not exist. In the introduction of Afshai Raz he wrote:

The most paying and interesting subject of study in this world is what happens to human beings; not only their external behaviour, but also their inner feelings and thoughts. These can be depicted through a novel provided an effort is made to present the picture truthfully …. We should not give ourselves unnecessary trouble by trying to base our novels upon the lives of persons about whom we cannot know anything in detail. In our own circle of friends and relatives there are bound to be many whose experiences are truly strange and fascinating. The trouble is that we do not pay heed to them because we cannot spare time from poring over the tomes of the histories of Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Henry VIII, Queen Anne, Napolean Bonaparte ete.