Abstract
This chapter examines how poet and courtesan in late eighteenth-century Lucknow collaborate in the public styling and enactment of desire. Jur’at’s romance with a real-life courtesan as its heroine and Inshā’s poems naming particular courtesans, are examples of how poetry at this time reinvigorates and transforms ‘ishq. Poets praise courtesans, and courtesans sing the works of poets.
Hazāroṅ deviyoṅ ko yahāṅ kī pariyoṅ ne pachhāṛā hai
Nahīṅ yah Lakhnau ik Rājā Indra kā akhāṛā hai
The fairies here have defeated thousands of goddesses
This is not Lucknow but Raja Indra’s arena
—Inshā1
Chitwan terī bas dekhte hī yād paṛe hai
Dillī kī wahī chŏhal wahī nahar du-gāna
When I see the way you look at me, I immediately remember
That mischief and merriment of Delhi, that canal, du-gāna
—Inshā2
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Notes
Khalil-ur Rahman Da‘udi, ed., Kulliyat-i Insha (Lahore: Lahore Majlis-i Taraqqi-yi Adab, 1969), 55: 81. Hereafter cited as KtI.
Faruq Argali, Rekhti (New Delhi: Farid Book Depot, 2006), 174.
Quoted in Amritlal Nagar, Ye Kothevaliyan (Allahabad: Lokabharati Prakashan, 2008), 163–64.
Najmuddin Shah Mubarak Abru, Divan-i Abru, ed. Muhammad Hasan (New Delhi: Taraqqi Urdu Bureau, 2000), 298–308.
For English translation of excerpts, see Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai, eds., Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 162–68.
Mirza Ja‘far Husain, Qadim Lakhnau ki Akhiri Bahar (New Delhi: Qaumi Kunsil bara’e Farugh-i-Urdu Zaban, 1998), 183–91.
Kang-i Sun Chang, “Liu Shih and Hsu Ts’an: Feminine or Feminist?” in Voices of the Song Lyric in China, ed. Pauline Yu (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 169–87; 172–73.
Sahar Amer, Crossing Borders, Love between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 128–49.
Sa‘adat Yar Khan Rangin, Majalis-i Rangin, ed. Sayyid ‘Ali Haidar (Patna: Idara Tahqiqat-e Arabi-o Farsi, 1990), 59.
Sabir ‘Ali Khan, Sa‘adat Yar Khan Rangin (Karachi: Anjuman Taraqqi-yi Urdu, 1956), 447. Hereafter cited as SYKR.
Kalam-i Insha, ed. Mirza Muhammad ‘Askari (Allahabad: Hindustani Akadmi, 1952), 324. Hereafter cited as KI.
Iqtida Hasan, ed., Kulliyat-i Jur’at (Napoli, Italy: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1970), II, 225: 36. Hereafter cited as KtJ.
Nazir Akbarabadi, Kulliyat-i Nazir (Delhi: Kitabi Duniya, 2003), 296–99.
The manuscript has takhtī; Faruq Argali, Rekhti: Urdu ke Namvar Rekhti Go Sha‘iraun ke Kalam ka Mukammal Majmu‘ah (New Delhi: Farid Book Depot, 2006), has sakhtī. Hereafter cited as R.
F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 1992), 769.
Iqtida Hasan, ed., Kulliyat-i Jur’at (Napoli, Italy: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1970), III, 324n1. Hereafter cited as KtJ.
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© 2012 Ruth Vanita
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Vanita, R. (2012). Styling Urban Glamour. In: Gender, Sex, and the City. Literatures and Cultures of the Islamic World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137016560_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137016560_8
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