Malka Jan: The life and lost verses of a 19th century courtesan

In a letter to Malka Jan in 1886, the poet Dagh Dehlvi had many things to say about Na’ala e Malka (Malka’s Lament), her composition in the masnavi form.

“The attribute of your community is ink, and your principle, freedom,” Dehlvi wrote. “You have amazing talent and your writing is as magnificent as your fate. Your masnavi is unique in aspect – brimming with flirtation, conceived in English and worded in Hindustani…”

Dehlvi’s words are evidence of Malka Jan’s renown as a woman of letters of the time. But this composition is now lost.

It isn’t the only one. The 19th century saw the emergence of several women Urdu poets, most of them tawaifs, but the works of these highly skilled courtesans were not preserved the way the verses of their male peers were. Writing spaces in North India were dominated by male poets like Ghalib, Zauq and Dagh while women’s voices went silent over time.

Moreover, women poets were often accused of having their lines ghostwritten by male admirers.

All that survives of their brilliant braiding of words is in tazkiras, or short biographies, which chronicled these women poets and published some of their lines.

Malka Jan’s first volume of poetry, Makhazana e Ulfat e Malka (Treasures of Malka’s Love), published in 1886 with notes of acclaim from prominent poets and tawaifs of the time – Hilal, Muhammad Jan tawaif, Abdul Ghafur Nassakh, among others – is preserved at the British Library and the Khuda Baksh Library, Patna.

Recently, the volume containing ghazals, thumris, holis and nazam compositions was republished by Shahid Saaz.

The early years of Adeline

Malka was born to Eliza and Hardy Hemmings in 1857 and christened as Adeline Victoria Hemmings. No records of Hardy Hemmings, a British gentleman who lived and worked in India, have been found. Eliza was a Hindu woman, Rukmini, who converted to Christianity and became Hardy’s mistress or bibi. Hardy’s untimely death left Eliza and Adeline destitute. Eliza took up work in the dry ice factory in Azamgarh.

At the age of 16, Adeline met Robert William Yeoward, an engineer at the factory. They were married at the Holy Trinity Church in Allahabad. The marriage certificate mentions only Adeline’s mother, which confirms that she was born out of wedlock.

In 1873 a daughter, Eileen Angelina Yeoward, was born to the couple. She would later become Gauhar Jan, India’s first gramophone star.

Though most accounts state that Robert William Yeoward was Armenian, Liz Chater, an Armenian family researcher, asserts that he was actually of British descent. She traces his lineage to a British man, William Henry Yeoward, who came to India in 1809.

Chater writes that the Armenian descent theory comes from Malka Jan’s puzzling deposition in a case in 1890 where she said in English, “I was a Christian first and now I’m Armenian and when I was Christian, my name was Adeline Victoria Hemmings.”

As Armenians are generally Christians, one can speculate that she wanted to say that she lived in the Armenian quarters. The Armenian context also came up in another case involving Gauhar Jan.

Malka Jan Tawaif

Adeline’s marriage to Robert ended in 1879. Though there are no records of divorce proceedings, Vikram Sampath writes in his book, My Name is Gauhar Jan, that Robert suspected that Adeline was in a relationship with a neighbor with whom she shared a love of music and poetry. Adeline was possibly suffering from depression after the death of her second daughter, Lily.

According to burial records, the 20-day-old infant was buried at Azamgarh in 1876. Music and poetry were Adeline’s only solace in those days of grief.

Once again Adeline was cast adrift with the added responsibility of a young daughter and her mother. At this point in her life Khursheed, a cloth trader, came into her life and supported them. Adeline and her family relocated to Benaras. She converted to Islam and became Malka. Little Angelina was named Gauhar.

Recognising her talent and sensing the opportunity, Khursheed had Malka trained in music and dance under Ali Baksh, Zeenat Bibi and Kallu Ustad. He set her up on a kotha as Malka Jan tawaif. She came to be known as Badi Malka Jan to distinguish her from another, possibly younger, Malka Jan in Benaras.

Malka’s voice and poetry found recognition in the bustling town of Benaras. She started writing Urdu poetry and became a pupil of a famous poet, Hazrat Hakeem Sheikh “Hilal”. Malka’s almost seamless entry and acceptance into the staunchly guarded world of the tawaif lends credence to the assertion of researchers like Sampath that her mother was a courtesan or tawaif who gave up her profession to become a white man’s bibi.

It is also said that the young Adeline was educated at home, known for her singing, and showed an inclination towards the arts and literature. Tawaifs were the only women equipped to educate a child in dance, singing and literature.

The Calcutta Years

In 1883, Nawab Mir Mehboob Ali Khan Asaf Jah Wali Dakkan invited Malka Jan to Calcutta. This was her chance to make a name for herself in the Fakhr e Hindustan, the shining capital of British India with its glittering salons and literary spaces. Initially, the family took up residence in a small house Colootola – the hub of kothas of tawaifs from Awadh, Benaras and Allahabad. But within three years, Malka Jan was able to buy a house next to the Nakhuda mosque for the exorbitant Rs 40,000.

The address, 49, Chitpur Road, became the measure of her success – it was the haunt of music aficionados, elites, princes and zamindars. She performed at Metiaburj, the palace of exiled Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, at mehfils hosted by the elite of Calcutta and the bhadralok – the newly emerging educated middle class – as well as at the courts of princely states.

The publication of Makhazan Ulfat e Malka was a literary event and the pinnacle of Malka’s poetic success. She lived a luxurious life. She bought a phaeton and went on long drives with little Gauhar, who was training to step into a glamorous world and take the legacy forward. Khursheed’s murder was a setback for Malka and young Gauhar who believed him to be her loving father.

Fame and money gave Malka comfort and security but very often she would slip into a depressive state and seek solace in alcohol. Her ghazals plumbed the depth of her despair and loneliness. Her writing was appreciated by her contemporaries as well as modern scholars like Ram Babu Saxena for its intricacy of meter and “poetic power and skill”.

Malka’s great joy was Gauhar who was trained under the most illustrious ustads of Calcutta and often sang with her mother. Gauhar’s coming-of-age nath-utrai ceremony, when she would enter the world of tawaifs, ended in the disaster of her rape by an old raja. She became pregnant but the child was still-born – traumatic experiences that shattered the teenager.

Malka stood steadfast with Gauhar. She supported her through her recovery and inevitable rise to fame. But this took a toll on Malka. She sank deeper into depression and alcoholism. Gauhar was a devoted daughter and became Malka’s strength.

Once, while singing at mehfil, Malka started vomiting blood. Gauhar, who was performing in another city, rushed back and nursed Malka back to health. Recognising the precarious state of her health, Gauhar never left Malka’s side, taking her along on all performances outside of Calcutta.

Gauhar was a diva, a star who recorded 600 songs in several languages for the Gramophone Company from 1902 to 1920. Malka’s songs were also recorded. Malka delighted in Gauhar’s fame, laughing at her daugther’s audacity when she drove her phaeton on the British-only side of the road and at her cheeky salute to the “Laat sahab”, the Governor General, who mistook her for a queen and bowed.

Malka died in 1906 at the age of 50. Her legacy was her poetry, her songs and Gauhar Jan.

In Makhazana e Ulfat e Malka, she muses on the transience of existence and uncertainty of life

Ek haal mein insan ki barsar ho nahi sakti,
Ab rang tabiyat ka badal jaye to accha.

To exist in an unchanging state is an impossibility
It is prudent now to change the colours of self.

Tarana Husain Khan is a writer and culinary revivalist based in Rampur. Her latest novel, The Courtesan, Her Lover and I, was longlisted for the AutHer Awards.