Jaipur Tamasha: Keeping alive 200-year-old tradition of music, dance and a touch of social activism

Jodhpur, Theatre actor and folk artist Dilip Bhatt remembers leaving his mother’s hand as a six-year-old and running towards the voice of his father Gopi Bhatt, surrounded by a cheerful audience witnessing the annual ‘tamasha’ spectacle in Jaipur.
It was a performance of the street art form of Jaipur Tamasha, founded by his great grandfather Banshidhar Bhatt some 200 years ago. And Dilip Bhatt, now in his 50s, recalls the day as it were yesterday, remembering how he broke into an impromptu mix of song and dance and how enamoured he was with his father’s performance.
“People told my father, ‘Bhatt ji, what an artiste you have prepared! He’ll definitely keep tamasha alive’,” Dilip Bhatt, one of the few performers of Jaipur Tamasha, recounted after a performance at Jodhpur RIFF last week.
Jaipur Tamasha, a captivating performance that combines Hindustani classical singing, dance, acting and live music involving the tabla, sarangi and the harmonium, is woven around stories of Hindu gods, kings of yore and the eternal love story of Heer and Ranjha.
“Tamasha is a custom that our family has followed for 250 years. It is a music-oriented performance and it is unique because it is the only folk art entirely based on Hindustani classical music,” Bhatt told PTI.
In an attempt to take the art form beyond the confines of a rigid structure and his family legacy, he learned proscenium theatre and created a play titled “Agni Pariksha” with stories of women’s struggles in a patriarchal society.
Currently, members of the Bhatt family are the only practitioners of the art form.
“It is the sixth generation of our family that is performing tamasha. I am teaching my sons Sachin and Harsh. They will take it forward,” he said.
However, keeping tamasha limited to his family is not what he has in mind, just something he has to make peace with.
“We taught tamasha to people outside our family but it requires time and patience. You can teach someone for an hour or two but they will go back and not take up tamasha. A few come to learn for a scholarship or a fellowship, or simply for research purposes. That’s why it’s still limited to just one family,” Bhatt noted.
“Struggle, patience and devotion are essential for learning tamasha.”
Apart from elaborate hand gestures, emotive facial expressions and steps that match the beats of the instruments, the performer has to be proficient in Hindustani classical music.
“It is also very important for the performer to know how to sing and maintain laya and taal ,” he said.
Some Hindustani classical ragas used in tamasha songs include Raag Sindhu Kafi, Raag Pahadi, Raag Bhopali, Raag Vrindavani Sarang, Raag Vihaag, Raag Darbari, Raag Malkauns, and Raag Kedar.
The 56-year-old performed parts of three stories originally written by Banshidhar Bhatt – ‘Jogi-Joga’ , the story of Raja Gopi Chand Bharthari, and Heer-Ranjha.
“These folk stories are old but they are still popular among people…We sing these stories in verse. These stories give us knowledge and teach us about patience and sacrifice. But these values are disappearing today, we are trying to keep them alive with tamasha,” Bhatt added.
His play “Agni Pariksha” includes stories about Sita’s agni pariksha , self-immolations of Padmini and Sati, and the murder of Neena Sahni in 1995.
“In an attempt to keep tamasha alive, I keep experimenting with different things, trying to connect tamasha with it. I learned acting and direction for this purpose and took tamasha to the theatre. I am doing all these things to keep this art alive,” he said.
The play has completed 108 shows across the country, including at the 20th Bharat Rang Mahotsav at National School of Drama.
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