Keshav Desiraju on Indian Classical Music and the Legacy of M. S. Subbulakshmi
Ideas of India
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Did We Teach Tease Women?
I don't think the accusation is so much that people outside the devdasi tradition should not be performing baratatiam or sader. The women were put in a particular box. They were excluded from sanitized and dignified society. But who was responsible for that? Look, when you became acceptable for girls and young women from caste households to begin learning dance, they were learning from the same non bamen, nortanars who were teaching the deeras women. And this an important point, is that they were es women who were maintained upper cast men,. strange as it may seem now, had a certain degree of respectability, even acceptability, respectability.
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