Review of Tarana Husain Khan’s new novel, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I

The title of writer and historian Tarana Husain Khan’s new novel, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I, echoes the name of the 1960s Hindi movie Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam. The genre is that of docu-fiction. As the story progresses, you are reminded of The Life of Jauhar Khan by Vikram Sampath and Mirza Hadi Ruswa’s Umrao Jan Ada. The narrative style is similar to the one in The Hours by Michael Cunningham and Julie and Julia by Julie Powell — where a story from the past gets reflected in the lives of people living in the present. This novel carries the weight of all these legacies impressively.

The first page draws you into the languorous spirit of a distant time and place carrying a faint fragrance called ‘Rampur’. Rukmini/ Rukhsar, an erstwhile features writer writing about the food scene in Delhi, returns with her husband Faraz, belonging to the Afghan bloodline, to his quirky but classic hometown, Rampur, after a short stint in debonair Dubai.

If you are looking for the intrigues of a Hindu-Muslim marriage, you will be disappointed — and thankfully, too. Rukmini is egged on to read about the lives of a Rampuri poet, Dagh Dehlvi, and his lady-love, Munni Bai Hijab, who lived towards the end of the 19th century. Dagh’s life is available for access through his many letters. While researching for more information about Munni Bai Hijab, a courtesan who was also a poet, Rukmini’s own life maps out against the contours of an ambivalent romance that lies buried in time and history.

Is love enough?

On the surface of the novel is the chequered love story of Munni Bai and Dagh. At the subterranean level is the story of Rukmini as she handles a husband who is habitually in debt and a teenage daughter who has taken a year’s gap from studies to figure out what she wants to do. Soon, the surface and the subterranean mingle. Munni Bai’s problematic relationship with her mother resonates with Rukmini’s estrangement from her mother. Dagh plays Prof. Higgins to Munni Bai and Rukmini finds her tutor-muse in Daniyal. 

“Writing is fragile — it needs to develop in quiet places,” says Rukmini, as Munni Bai fears losing her clientele if she does not manufacture new lines regularly. She meets Dagh clandestinely while Rukmini meets Daniyal by pretending to go to the library. The cut-throat world of courtesans blends with the struggles of a first-time novelist trying to break through the gatekeeping in the publishing world. The stories of the two women become parallel commentaries on each other.

Author Tarana Husain Khan

This novel leads you to several questions about human society. How does a culture that honoured courtesans in the guise of celebrating their artistic talents erase the trauma of their bodies being sold to the highest bidder? How could a courtesan who did not have a daughter continue to earn an income? Whether Umrao Jan Ada or Gauhar Jan or Munni Bai Hijab — what keeps them alive? Is it their poetry or their association with their male patrons? Does Dagh really love Munni Bai? Can a tawaif find true love? Does love exist? How does true love express itself — through poetry, silence, anger, rejection? Sometimes we stay on with people and call it love and, at other times, we walk away from people because we love them.

The choices we make

The author uses expressions, both Urdu words and Gen Z lingo, deftly. The translated poems — never an easy task — carry the essence but not the beauty of Urdu metrical compositions. The novel mentions multiple times that Rampur was established in 1774 by the Pathans. A deeper exploration of history could have added another dimension to the novel. Rampur was referred to as Aaraampur under the Nawabs and then as Haraampur when the British took over. Rampur’s obscure past before 1774 could have matched Munni Bai’s.

The novel also consolidates a demographic shift: Rupa Bajwa from Amritsar, Devika Rege from Pune, and now Tarana Husain Khan from Rampur. This band of gifted Indian women novelists writing in English is displacing the supremacy of the metropolis.

Capturing the delectable flavours of Awadhi food; delicately delineating characters, both real and fictional, especially that of the perceptive patriarch, Baba; portraying the contemporary struggles of keeping a family together; showcasing subtly the many layers that mark the disquiet of human choices — this is the novel you have been waiting for.

The reviewer is a Sahitya Akademi translation award winner.

The Courtesan, Her Lover and I

Tarana Husain Khan

Hachette India

₹699