History of Courtesan Culture: Chawri Bazaar

Chawri Bazaar, as it is now known, was a beautiful boulevard where cultured courtesans or tawaifs lived. Rich and powerful men from all over the country came to his bazaar in search of these women's companies. The history of the halcyon days of this industry, famous historic sites, and its renowned concubines will be discussed during the walk. This is a story about the courtesan culture of ‘Chawri Bazaar’ in Delhi. It's extremely interesting to note the historical relevance of these women and their impact on culture and society. They are widely misunderstood.

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The stories of Chawri Bazaar's tawaifs or courtesans have been handed down through the generations of Purani Dilli wallahs (inhabitants of Old Delhi). The market around Jama Masjid, known for its designer wedding cards and hardware, was once the fashionable promenade for the Shahjahanabad elite. Almost every staircase on the street is said to lead to a bordello.

Masjid Mubarak Begum in Chawri Bazaar, Old Delhi, is named after David Ochterlony, the city's first British resident. Mubarak Begum was a dancing girl, and it is because of her background that this early-nineteenth-century mosque is known colloquially as ‘Randi ki Masjid’, or prostitute's mosque. The mosque's caretakers make every effort to dismiss the name, even going so far as to paint the mosque's "correct name" in Roman letters on its façade.

The tawaifs are a mysterious and enticing target. Veena Talwar Oldenburg, a historian, patiently befriended a group of courtesans in Lucknow in the 1970s as part of her research on the social consequences of colonial urbanization. The courtesans she met were self-sufficient, wealthy, and well-educated. Their patrons included the new nobility, which included high-ranking government officials and businessmen. Their closest emotional and romantic liaisons were with each other, which they referred to in their conversations as chapat bazi.

The kothas or tawaifs described by Talwar Oldenburg are unlikely to be encountered in modern-day Delhi or Lucknow. They have left residual and often romanticized traces, such as decorative bottles said to be theirs or the well-preserved arch of an old haveli where they lived almost a century back.

While there have always been street-level shops in the market, courtesans and public women have always lived upstairs. Sharma explains how different categories of public women were assigned different sections of the street. They provided, among other things, sex, dance, music, and refinement. The balconies, with their delicate pillars and latticed arches, have mostly vanished. They've been encased in dusty glass rectangles and sucked into existing rooms.

There are designated areas for performing and singing in many GB Road kothas. GB Road was once home to tawaifs such as the famous Maya Devi, who studied Kathak with Acchan Maharaj and Hindustani music with Kirana gharana masters. Pavan Pul, a Mumbai compound inhabited by women who worked as courtesans and in the entertainment business, was the subject of the British docudrama The Courtesans of Bombay in 1983. The women danced and sang with their musicians in ordinary tube-lit, terrazzo-floored living rooms where they also raised their children during the day. ‘Pavan Pul’ can no longer be found on a map.

These streets and nooks are filled with stories from bygone eras of women who made something of themselves challenging the patriarchal authority.