Silencing of the Sirens
by
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CHAPTER ONE THE (DIS)EMPOWERED WOMAN A highly sequestered place, engrossing, with women dressed magnificently; bejewelled in precious stones and jewelry, her couplets sound convincing and declare her presence instantly. The listeners sit dumbfounded by her beauty and her charm. She claims and denies in the same tone, communicating a shared secret to her patron. She attracts her audience to keep watching—these being the opening moments of a mehfil held inside seraglios of royal princes. It has been over 116 years since Umrao Jan Ada (1899) was published in Urdu. By now, some of the ambiguity surrounding Umrao’s historical fictional presence has encouraged many stereotypical images of the figure of the courtesan. Scholarly volumes have discussed the emergence of the cult of the courtesan and its disappearance with the end of the Mughal Empire. Most of the available (i.e., published) material seem to focus on biographical details of courtesans or elaborate on highly romanticized images of the courtesan figure. However, some of the existing textual accounts that discuss the figure of courtesan, focussed primarily on the life of Muslim women, such accounts show influence of European accounts of Mughal self-indulgence and treachery. Later day works on life, art and the origin of courtesans have been undertaken by Abdul Halim Sharar, Shamsur Rehman Farooqi, Pran Neville, K. S. Lal, Veena Talwar Oldenburg, Abraham Eraly, Durba Ghosh, R. Nath and others who have produced studies of the courtesan figure in a more complex manner, engaging with people and their culture elucidating factors that sustained the way of life of the courtesan. According to Greek mythology, the word “sirens” is a folkloric representation of the female who were half-bird/half-woman creatures. They were known to lure men by their mysterious music and enchanting voices taking them to the midst of rocks and cliffs. These sirens were responsible for many shipwrecks as well. Such a representation contributes to the notion of the woman as the femme fatale and other such evil connotations. Several other authors, one being Homer, mentions the word sirens in their works hinting at women. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a siren is: 1. A device for making a loud prolonged signal or warning sound 2. Each of a number of women or winged creatures whose singing lured unwary sailors on to rocks 3. A temptress; a tempting pursuit Taking the third meaning and discussing it with reference to the courtesan-question, the events in the life of a courtesan might be distinct at every stage, age and level, but the representation of those events continues to be stereotyped in terms of its verbal and visual meanings. The term courtesan has been subsumed under the category of prostitution and sex-trade which is a blanket term and does great disservice to the specialized mode of life that the courtesans led. The word siren means a promiscuous and loud woman who is dangerous enough to lure men with her charm and musical skills. In this context, even though, Franz Kafka’s short story The Silence of the Sirens is a much later version using the mythical siren creatures and their infectious songs , this short story weaves the siren-metaphor brilliantly for readers. Ulysses during his journey closes his ears and ties himself up to the mast of the ship to prevent the “attack” coming from the siren’s song. However, Ulysses does not realize the fact that the silence of the sirens can be deadlier than their song. Upon unblocking his ears, he realizes that the sirens were silent all the time. This includes two possibilities: 1. Ulysses knew that the sirens were silent and pretended to take that extra precaution 2. Ulysses was sceptical about turning mad at the hands of the sirens. Kafka towards the end of the story admits that human understanding is deeper than one can possibly think but one should not waste oneself in futile interpretations and complicated approach to solving problems. Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence. And though admittedly such a thing has never happened, still it is conceivable that someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence certainly never. Against the feeling of having triumphed over them by one’s own strength, and the consequent exaltation that bears down everything before it, no earthly powers could have remained intact. (Kafka, 431)
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About the Book
After identifying the misconceptions attached to the figure of the Mughal Courtesan and then defining it in terms of the dual-component structure of adaa, in the face of a dearth of literature that exists on the culture and the agency of the courtesan, this analysis would reinterpret the status of the courtesan figure within the domain of feminist theories and self-assertion. The female desire for autonomy, according to Elaine Showalter, defines a female exclusivity in terms of the “dynamic phase,” which is a combination of the feminine conflict between self-fulfillment and duty, the feminist political consciousness, and the female desire for autonomy. If one operates the courtesan figure in the Showalter domain, then the means to resist gender hierarchies through literary practices lie in a combination of both demand for exclusivity and real struggle into a truly subversive aesthetic which would have allowed the courtesan to have walked the corridors of power. Juliet Mitchell’s argument states that the gendered treatment of women came into existence through the ideological form of the novel, with females constructing themselves as the women they are under bourgeois norms by reading and writing novels. Rereading the Silencing of the Sirens would uncover another such exclusive female tradition studying the female consciousness from the courtesan’s point of view.
About the Author
Aditi Dasgupta, an explorer guided by deep sense of intellectual enquiry, completed her M.Phil. in English. Her area of academic interest lies in postcolonial literature and comprehending problems of identity and nationality. : Aditi has been associated with organizations like Times Group, Adfactors PR and Mahindra & Mahindra.