courtesan - Comfortably Numb

Book review: Nautch Boy by Manish Gaekwad

Bittersweet memories Nautch Boy is a companion piece to the author`s affecting 2023 memoir of his mother, The Last Courtesan. Here, while still training focus on the formidable Rekhabai and her life after retiring/giving up the career of a tawaif, he opens a door into his own life and growing up feeling unloved and unwanted…

Book review: The Last Courtesan by Manish Gaekwad

This woman`s life It cannot be the easiest of things, to write your mother`s memoir. All the more when your mother happened to be India`s last tawaif or courtesan. Manish Gaekwad, though, has turned a steady gaze on his mother`s colourful life and written up the account with unflinching honesty. Ultimately, what comes through is…

Book review: Ambapali by Tanushree Podder

The courtesan`s story Historical fiction has been having its day in the sun for some time now and the story of Ambapali has been considered so fascinating that it has spawned books, movies, as well as a television serial. In this retelling, Tanushree Podder does more than justice to this familiar story which translates here…

Book review: Requiem in Raga Janki by Neelum Saran Gaur

A mellifluous tale, this rich re-telling of a diva`s saga. The unidentified narrator of the tale is an elderly singer pushing 90 from what we can discern, who sings for her supper these days in a new way…she tells the tales of the famous courtesan Jankibai Illahabadi. However, she firmly states, `at my age things crowd…