There is something about tawaifs (courtesans) that has long fascinated writers, poets, and filmmakers. They exist at a delicate intersection of vulnerability and authority, evading easy categorisation: victims to some, ‘loose women’ to others.
Yet, at a time when most women wielded little autonomy, tawaifs often had access to education, wealth, and power, while serving as custodians of cultural capital.
What has particularly drawn writers and poets to them is this paradox—they sell intimacy on one hand, while yearning for “real” love on the other.
One of the most celebrated Urdu poets of the 19th century, Dagh Dehlvi is said to have fallen for one such tawaif, immortalising her in his poetry. That woman, Munni Bai Hijab, is now at the centre of writer and cultural historian Tarana Husain Khan’s latest book, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I.
Dagh and Hijab are said to have met in Rampur, the setting that Khan returns to in her book. Her earlier work, Degh to Dastarkhwan: Qissas and Recipes from Rampur (2022), had explored the city’s rich culinary legacy.
One half of The Courtesan, Her Lover and I unfolds in the 19th century, while the other is set in the present, following Rukmini—who also goes by Rukhsar—an aspiring writer working on a book about Hijab.
A Hindu woman married to Faraz, a Muslim man, Rukmini finds her own life beginning to shift as she delves deeper into Hijab’s story, with the help of a brooding Daniyal, an expert on Rampuri history and culture.
Two love stories unfold simultaneously, set two centuries apart. Interestingly, while Rukmini judges Dagh and Hijab’s “liaison”, dismissing it as a “lust story”—“so banal, so transient and insignificant. I feel ridiculous; I’m pathetic,” she says of writing it, even as she finds herself increasingly drawn to Daniyal.
“Daniyal’s concentrated gaze is watching my unravelling. He nods slightly, and I feel sure that he has glimpsed my core and understood; perhaps he already knew. Later, I will look back at this moment—this sudden, improbable creation of ‘us’,” she writes.
In that instant, the judgement so easily cast on something as fleeting as love, begins to waver.
While Rukmini’s story—with its struggles of writing, a troubled marriage, raising a teenage daughter, and navigating menopause—unfolds in the first person, Khan makes a bold choice with Hijab. Her story is told in the second person, initially distracting, but increasingly arresting as the pages turn.
“I decided to use the second person for her narrative, so it feels that I’m in conversation with her over the centuries that separate us,” Rukmini writes of Hijab.
And while two centuries set the two women apart, one thing remains constant, the dominance of men, here most visibly within the literary world.
While Rukmini grapples with her own struggles as a writer, Hijab, a poet in her own right, comes to be known less for her own verses and more through those of Dagh Dehlvi.
A striking sher by Hijab captures this enduring imbalance:
“Hazrat-e-naseh na bak-bak kar phirayein sar mera,
Qibla-e-man chup hi rahiye, bas nasihat ho chuki.
(Your constant chatter makes my head spin: be quiet now, learned one, enough of your advice.)"
Although one feels more connected with Rukmini’s story, perhaps because readers get familiarised with Hijab through her, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I remains a beautifully written, layered work.
As it peels through the many shades of love, it also uncovers Rampur’s culture, food, and faded legacy. And, as one turns the last page, the experience lingers, much like the satisfaction of a slow, sumptuous meal.
The Courtesan, Her Lover and I
Publisher: Hachette India
Page count: 318
Price: Rs 699