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Sunday, February 22, 2026
TopicTawaifs

Topic: Tawaifs

Caste and kotha didn’t go together. It freed many lower caste girls

In 'Nautch Boy', Manish Gaekwad offers a memoir of his life, documenting his experiences as a queer child growing up in a kotha.

‘The Last Courtesan’ is a saga of guns, gangs, ghazals. Author didn’t want it to be a movie

Manish Gaekwad brought a lot of Hindi-Urdu words into the text. 'That’s how she spoke, and that’s the language of her story–why change it? Why interrupt a woman while she is talking?'

Haseenain-e-Lucknow—a photographic record of tawaifs and what it tells us about Awadh

The album was produced as a luxury item, with no more than a few copies, and suggests an aesthetic link to the Mughal 'muraqqa' tradition of illustrated albums.

Why’s Bollywood obsessed with Tawaifs? ‘Heeramandi’ brings back the stereotypes

According to Pakistani film critic Omer Adil, filmmakers of the subcontinent have created a fantasy chimaera, a celluloid courtesan, which has nothing to do with tawaifs.

‘Mujra, tawaif not bad words’—Classical dancer rescuing courtesan culture from British gaze

Manjari Chaturvedi is bringing tawaifs’ songs and performances to life through ‘The Courtesan Project’, which she launched in 2011 and discussed at IIC’s recent Music Appreciation Programme.

Tawaifs weren’t just into art and culture. Their role in Independence remains forgotten

When the British Raj encountered Tawaifs—women with agency and autonomy—they were confounded and threatened, unable to categorise this community within their social divisions.

On Camera

Nick Jonas wearing a mangalsutra is validation for many Indians. He’s our favourite jiju

Nick Jonas is not trying to modernise the mangalsutra, but his gesture shows that choices can be equal. If commitment must be flaunted, it need not be gendered.

In the West, there’s anxiety. In India, optimism—Rishi Sunak says India poised to be leader in AI

On Wednesday, the former UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was speaking in New Delhi at a Carnegie & Observer Research Foundation event on AI.

In a first, Indian small arms maker to bid for UK Project Grayburn to replace British Army’s SA80 rifles

Bengaluru-based SSS Defence has made public its bid for a major foreign military contract, targeting UK’s ambitious SA80 successor programme with its home-tested weapons.

No country is ever fully sovereign. Cold War era taught India its real meaning

India’s fraught neighbourhood places multiple constraints on its strategic choices. It leaves no time to take a deep breath, lean back and reset.