Sonia Faleiro

Tamasha artist Mangala Bhansode is all curves and ample bosom and when she hollers in English “I know you want it, but you’re never going to get it,” lyrics from the hit Bollywood song Sheila ki Jawani, the audience responds with frenzy. Flinging in the air their homespun Gandhi caps, woolen scarves and gloves, even the blankets they’d brought along, they yell back in English: “Once More! Once More! Once More!”

None of this would be surprising if Bhansode wasn’t a 60-year-old grandmother. Or if her audience of 3,000 wasn’t comprised entirely of men. Or if most of the men weren’t Marathi-speaking farmers in a conservative Maharashtrian village far removed from the world of urban India.

Sonia Faleiro

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At its peak tamasha or folk theater served as entertainment for Marathi royalty. Today it is performed almost exclusively in rural areas for male audiences. Tamasha is of two kinds. Sangeet Bari is performed near urban centers in theaters. The more humble Dholki-padh refers to a traveling party — tamasha language for ‘troupe’ — like that of Bhansode. Some parties, too poor to afford a stage, perform on the same bullock cart in which they travel. Since they perform in the shade, this is also known as “Tamasha under the Tree.” Parties perform in one village at night, spend the following day traveling to a different village, and if they make it in time, whip out a performance that same evening. Each performance includes music, dance, and comedic skits, and often lasts from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m.

It’s a grueling job, and not just on stage. Bhansode has to bribe the police and deal with local politicians who threaten her team with knives. Several years ago a miscreant set a tent on fire. It’s hardly a conventional role for an Indian woman. But nothing about Bhansode, the only woman in Maharashtra to own her own tamasha party, is conventional.

Sonia Faleiro

“I was delivered in a tent exactly like this,” Bhansode tells me in a throaty voice. We are sitting in a large tent in which the artistes sleep and change into costume. “And when I was pregnant with my first child I was onstage until my water broke. Like my mother, I gave birth in a tent. The umbilical cord was cut with a stone.”

Bhansode is a third-generation tamasha artist. (Tamasha performers refer to themselves as “artistes”). Her grandfather Bhau Narayan Khude co-owned a tamasha party, and her late mother was the legendary Vithabai Narayangaonkar, who was known as the Lavani Empress. Bhansode’s career started with Vithabai. In a documentary made by the women’s archive SPARROW, Vithabai says that some family members were opposed to a girl joining the party because they felt it would compromise their honor. To this her father responded, “What is honor to us (tamasha artists)? One day my daughter will be a great artist and bring glory to the family name.”

Despite the acclaim she enjoyed, Vithabai couldn’t sustain her own party. Bhansode does just that. She’s so popular she works the entire tamasha calendar, seven months a year, traveling to 210 villages. (There are no performances in the monsoon season). She has 150 employees, owns five buses that transport artists and equipment, and drives around in a bright red SUV with her Alsatians, Diana and Pintoo. On a good night, she earns a lakh (100,000) Indian rupees (about $2,040).

Sonia Faleiro

It’s easy to understand why the audience loves her. Her raspy voice has melody and power. And although she must weight over a 100 kilograms (220 pounds), her movements are strikingly light-footed. The sensuality of her gestures are so compelling that even when she’s dancing among teenagers in skimpy “lehenga cholis,” it’s Bhansode the audience clamors for, yelling “Once more,” even before she’s done singing.

Bhansode’s success has also meant success for her party. One of her female artists is as young as 13, but most are approaching 18. All of them are lower caste, have no education, and without this job might not make ends meet.

Puja is 15 and lives in Vasai, a Mumbai suburb. “If it wasn’t for this,” she says, “I’d have to sell bead necklaces at the railway station, like my parents did. Here I earn 5,000 rupees a month ($101), enough for my whole family.” Puja has worked with Bhansode for two years. “It was difficult in the beginning,” she admits. “I felt embarrassed being on stage. But now I don’t feel anything.” The rigorous performance schedule leaves Puja little time to think of or interact with the outside world. She doesn’t watch television or even know the prime minister’s name. And the only time she leaves the tented area is when the female artists are taken down to the closest river to bathe. “Tamasha feeds me,” she says. “And so I live only for tamasha.”

Bhansode is of the same mind. “Our life is like garbage in the wind. It’s a terrible life, moving from here to there, often receiving no respect only trouble for our hard work. But this is how we survive. And that which lets you survive, you must respect. You must love.”