The 18th and the 19th centuries not only saw significant changes in the political climate but also in the cultural milieu of the subcontinent. As Delhi was attacked and sacked by the Marathas and the Afghans multiple times during the 18th century, there was a decline in the rich court culture that prevailed during the Mughals, forcing artists, littérateurs and other people from the court to seek greener pastures. The new states, born from erstwhile Mughal territories, offered the only viable alternative to them and therefore, they migrated in large numbers to the states of Awadh, Bengal and Hyderabad. Awadh became the hub of Urdu high culture, eventually giving rise to what is referred to as the ‘golden period’ in Urdu poetry, spanning roughly between these two centuries.
Urdu poetry grew both in terms of genre and content during this time. While the traditional forms of Urdu poetry like the ghazals written in the rekhta(masculine) form have stood the test of time, and continue to be extremely popular even today, other forms have faded into the past or were deliberately eradicated from popular imagination as part of ‘purifying’ literature and culture. One such genre which has been removed from the radar is the rekhti form, which was unique from other popular forms of Urdu poetry. The most unique feature of rekhti poetry is that the speaker is a woman, where she is shown in a conversation with another woman or sometimes with a man. While ghazals, which adhere to a specific metre and rhythm, eulogise separation and pain suffered by the beloved during the quest of love and more often than not, have mystical undertones, rekhti strictly deals with this-worldly passions and pleasure (often erotic) with the woman being the subjects of that pleasure. The poems also deal with the day to day humdrum of the lives of women and can give significant insights into the urban milieu from a female’s perspective.
According to Ruth Vanita, the non-mystical rekhta (conventional Urdu poetry with a male speaker) and rekhti were similar in terms of language, content and tone, etc. In fact, she points out that many poets almost transformed their rekhtas to rekhtis by merely changing a few words. The rekhti, as pointed out by one of its pioneers, Rangin, was, therefore, a feminine form of rekhta. It draws from a rich corpus of erotic literature written in the medieval period in Brajbhasha (Riti poetry- also denounced in the 19th century) and also from poetry authored by women within the bhakti-Sufi traditions, as well as from erotic literature from the Sanskritic traditions. One of the famous rekhti poets, Insha, even suggests that his erotic rekhti poems surpassed all other forms of erotic literary traditions of the subcontinent.
The liberal nature of the Awadhi court culture (effeminate, according to T. Grahame Bailey) was conducive to the growth of rekhti. However, while scholars like Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai use this as an example to point out the progressive nature of the early modern period, with Kidwai considering it to be one of the ‘last vestiges of medieval freedom and the new voices of modernity,’ Urdu scholar C.M. Naim points out that the rekhti was in fact, satirical, and was meant to mock the homoerotic relations between women, for the poets and audience were overwhelmingly cis-gendered male, with Naim arguing that fewer women were likely to read poetry, let alone write them. However, Vanita points to evidence of women’s engagement with poetry, both as audience and as writers, though most of the writings by the women have not survived.
Irrespective of whether they were meant to be satirical or not, because of their explicit descriptions of erotic relations between women and sometimes between men and women or of women enjoying (often, sexual) pleasure or pining for her beloved, it attracted a lot of criticism from various quarters and this eventually became the primary reason for the waning away of the genre after mid-19th century.
The rekhti poetry was dismissed as lewd and obscene by the reformists of the late-19th century who were horrified by its amorous nature. They denounced these poems as immoral, due to which a lot of it has not survived. Authors who wrote such poetry were also denounced. For instance, Ruby Lal points out that Insha’s rekhti poetry was denounced as “vulgar,” “of the common people” and “cheap.” His other works, which were quite progressive for their time, like Rani Ketki ki Kahani, though initially well-received, was criticised for its boldness; for the depiction of women who sought to defy the expected societal norms.
The ghazals or the love poems were not accessible to sharif women- they were barred from reading these because of their subject matter. There was no question of providing access to rekhti. The division between the sharif women and the tawaif women had blurred out to some extent in the 18th and the 19th centuries, with several queens (like Begum Hazrat Mahal in Awadh) in the harems of the Mughals or Awadh being tawaifs. The reformers, while trying to negotiate the subject of an ideal woman, made a concerted effort to demonise the tawaif culture, for they believed in the domesticity of women with limited access to the public sphere independently – the courtesan culture prevailing in the north had been denounced and almost dismantled by the late 19th century with the reduction of this culture to prostitution.
Another reason for the grouse among the conservatives was the fact that a man wrote the poetry in a woman’s voice, which went against the notion of an ‘ideal’ man and therefore warranted condemnation. Many contemporary poets had accused rekhti poets (a poet from Delhi, Gheni had accused Rangin, for instance) of using these ‘lewd’ writings to flirt and seduce the tawaifs; not that the cross-dressing habits or mimicking of women by poets like Jan Sahib while reading rekhti could have gone down well with the conservative reformers.
In all, rekhti poetry was regarded by critics as poor in terms of content. Grahame Bailey points out how in general, Urdu poetry written in Delhi and Awadh varied, with poetry from Delhi focusing more on thought, content, and symbolic meaning, while the poems from Awadh were much more ornate in terms of language, and focused on the material than the abstract.
Eventually, with the fall of Awadh, rekhti poetry died out for it no longer had many patrons, and the poets faced stiff opposition from the conservatives. The revival of interest among scholars regarding rekhti has only risen in the last decade or so, and sadly as Ruth Vanita points out, a lot of work has not been preserved and therefore, has been lost forever in the annals of history.
Debanjan is a second year student of History at St.Stephen's College, Delhi
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