Bhikhari Thakur
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Bhikhari Thakur | |
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 Bhikhari Thakur | |
| Born | Bhikhari Thakur 18 December 1887 Qutubpur, Shahabad, Bengal Presidency, British India (now Saran District, Bihar, India) |
| Died | 10 July 1971 (aged 83) |
| Resting place | Ashes scattered in the Ganges |
| Occupation |
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| Language | |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Period | British Raj, Independent India |
| Literary movement | Feminism |
| Notable works |
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| Spouse | Matuna |
| Children | 1, Shilanath Thakur |
Bhikari Thakur (18 December 1887 – 10 July 1971) was an Indian Bhojpuri language poet, playwright, lyricist, actor, folk dancer, folk singer and social activist, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Bhojpuri language and most popular folk writer of Purvanchal and Bihar.[1][2][3][4][5][6] He is often called the "Shakespeare of Bhojpuri" and "Rai Bahadur".[7] His works consist of more than a dozen plays, Monologues, Poems, Bhajans which appeared in print as nearly three dozen books. His noteworthy works are Bidesiya, Gabarghichor, Beti Bechwa and Bhai Birodh, Gabarghichor is often compared with Bertolt Brecht's play The Caucasian Chalk Circle.[8] He is also known as the father of the naach folk theatre tradition.[9] He is also credited as the first person to cast male actors in female roles.[10]
Thakur was born and raised in Kutubpur village of Saran, in his adolescence he married Matuna from whom he had only one son: Shilanath Thakur. In the early 1900s, he started his career as an actor, writer, singer and dancer. He remained active till his death in 1971. He published most of his works between 1938 to 1962. His early works were dialogues and musical plays, later he wrote some philosophical works, Bhajans, Harikirtans and other poems.
Life[]
Early life[]
Thakur was born in a barber family on 18 December 1887 in Kutubpur or Qutubpur[11] diyara village of Chhapra.[12][13][14] Initially his village was the part of Shahabad district (present Bhojpur) but later (in 1926) due to the change in the course of the Ganges got separated from Shahabad and became the part of Saran district, his maternal grandmother's house remained in Arrah.[15][16] He was the son of Dalsingar Thakur, who was a barber by profession and his mother's name was Sivkali Devi. Bhikhari Thakur was elder of the two sons, the name of his younger brother was Bahor Thakur. Due to the poor condition of his family, Thakur did not even manage to complete his primary education. He only had the knowledge of the Kaithi alphabets and Ramcharitmanas.[17] In his adolescence, he married Matuna, in 1911 Matuna gave birth to a son, Shilanath Thakur.[18] He used to graze cattle in his childhood and when he grew up he had to adopt his family profession of a barber. However, he wanted to do something else and did not want to do the job of barber. He shifted from his village to the neighboring village named Fatanpur. In 1914, Thakur was 27 years old and father of a son and famine had hit the village that year. After that, he left his family and went to Kharagpur in the search of job, where his uncle had also migrated once.[19][11]
From Kharagpur, he went to Puri and then Calcutta, and followed his traditional occupation of cutting hair. This was the first time, He realised that the country in which he lives is Hindustan and is ruled by the Angrej. He used to watch the Ramlila, and from there he got the inspiration to write and act in plays. He also watched "Silema" (Cinema) for the first time and met Babulal, a person from Bihar who used to run a "naach hall".[11] He returned to his village formed a drama company and started performing Ramlila.[20]
Career[]
In the early part of twentieth century, he returned to his village and started presenting Ramlila with a small troupe, but was opposed and blocked by Upper Caste Hindus to perform such an important religious text by people with lower caste.[21] After that, Bhikhari Thakur formed a theatrical company and started writing and directing plays by his own. Most of his plays used to revolve around the plight of women, village folks and confrontation between old values and modern values.[22][23] The first play written by Bhikhari Thakur was Biraha Bahar, he wrote his most famous play Bidesiya in 1917, when he was 30 years old. Between 1938 to 1962, more than three dozen books of Bhikhari Thakur were published. Most of the books were published by Dudhnath Press (Howrah) and Kachaudi Gali (Varanasi).[24]
He impressed people all over Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bengal by his performances.[13] He used to visit place to place with the artists of his theatre company to perform at marriages and other events and used to charge a lump sum.[25] He went to Arrah, Ballia, Muzaffarpur, Gorakhpur, Jaunpur, Jharia and as far as Dibrugarh in Assam to perform. However, despite of his popularity, he also faced disdain for his low caste and for performing Launda Naach by dressing himself in women clothes.[11] A humongous number of people would gather to watch his plays, especially for Bidesiya, whenever and wherever Bidesiya was staged and played, there used to be an uncontrollable crowd.[26] Thakur's plays were so impactful that, There are stories of young girls leaving the mandap and running away instead of docilely marrying the old men their parents have taken money from.
Owing to his popularity, people started selling pirated copies of his books and even such books that were not written by him, for this he had to write "Bhikhari Pustika Suchi", which had the list and details of all of his published works. He also wrote "Bhikhari Shanka Shamadhan" to clear fake news that was spreading about him.[24]
Last years and death[]
In 1946, Cholera sweeped his village in which his wife died when he was touring for one his shows. His mother also died when he was touring.[11] In 1963, Bhojpuri movie Bidesiya released which was based on his play, in the movie Bhikhari Thakur made a special appearance, where he recited his own poem "Dagaria johat na". Thakur died on 10 July 1971.
Theatrical Company[]
In the early 20th century, Bhikhari formed his own theater company against the wills of his parents.[27] In early days, the company used to perform only Ramlila but later it started staging plays written by Bhikhari Thakur. Most of the plays were performed in open sky on an elevated platform surrounded by audience. The company had group of skilled singers, dancers and actors. Some notable names are Ramchandra Manjhi (dancer), Mahendra (singer), Ram Lacchan and Juthan were comedians, musicians were Ghinawan (Dholak), Tafzul (Tal), Alijan (Sarangi) and Jagdeo (Harmonium).[28]
In those days, due to Parda system, it was very hard for women to perform in plays, Bhikhari Thakur included the Launda dancers to cast them as women in his plays. Later it became one of the greatest attractions of his plays. In January 2021 government of India felicitated Ramchandra Manjhi, a Launda dancer of his company with Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian honour of India.[29]
Works[]
Most of the works of Bhikhari Thakur were based on the problem of the society like plight of the migrants and women, poverty, Mother's love, etc.[30] Bhikhari Thakur published almost 3 dozen books and booklets in his career. His published and unpublished works were compiled by Bhikhari Thakur Aashram and published in three parts as Bhikhari Thakur Granthavali. The first part was published in 1979 in which his five plays are compiled namely, Bidesiya, Bhai Birodh, Beti Bechwa, Kaljug Prem and Radheshyam Bahar. The second part was published in 1986 in which five more plays are there, namely Putra Badh, Gabarghichor, Nanad-Bhaujai, Ganga Asnan and Bidhwa Bilaap. The third and last part has his other plays, songs and monologues.[31]
Style and Contributions[]
Plays of Bhikhari Thakur were different from modern plays of the 20th century, which used to have dialogues only, in spite of this, the plays of Thakur were closer to the style used in classical Sanskrit theatre and Shakespeare's style, which used to contain both songs and dialogues.[32] Plays written by Thakur imbibed many principles from the Classical Indian Theatre. For example, his plays used to start with maṃgalācaran which is an essential part of Sanskrit plays in which prayers are dedicated to Ganapati and Saraswati, asking for the blessings. They also had Samājī which is equivalent to Shutradhāra of Sanskrit theatre and Chorus of Greek Theatre. The samaji used to explain about the play in the Prologue, its characters and used to draw example parallel to Hindu mythology.[33] Another important part of his plays were labār which are known as viduṣak in Indian classical theatre, who used to come in the middle of the play just to entertain the audience by doing some comedy.[10] The characters of the plays of Bhikhari Thakur are of types representing the general rather than the particular. For example, in the play Bidesiya, the character of Bidesi represents all the young men who used to go to Assam and Bengal for earning. Similarly Batohi means Traveller and represents a random person who is going to Kolkata.[33]
He incorporated everything that he found appropriate and exciting from other popular theatre in his plays. His Bidesiya is the blend of religious, secular, Tragedy, Comedy, traditional and modern theatre genre. He also included instruments like Tabla, Harmonium, Dholak, Sitar, Jhal, and Bansi. He also adopted all the popular Bhojpuri Folk songs genre in his plays like Biraha, Purbi, Kajari, Alha, Fagua, Chaita, Sorathi, Chaubola etc.[21] He also created a new form of Chhand which is called Bidesiya Chhand, unlike the chhands in vernaculars, which are Matrik, Bidesiya chhand is Varnik or syllabic like classical Sanskrit poetry, which have 32 syllables in each line like Ghankashari Chhanda of Sanskrit.[34] For example in Bidesiya, Pyari is expounding her husband's appearance to Batohi:[35]
Kariyā nā gor bāte, lāmā nāhi hawan nāte (17),
Majilā jawān sām sundar batohiyā(15)...— Bhikhari Thakur, Bidesiya, Scene IV
Messages and Impact[]
The plays and songs of Bhikhari Thakur depict the evils that were corroding the society.[36] Bidesiya depicts the pain of a woman whose husband leaves her and marries another woman, Beti Bechwa depicts the practice of unequal marriage, Bidhwa Bilaap depicts that a widow is treated and cheated by the society and her family. Besides social problems, Thakur has also talked about the separation of joint families in Bhai Birodh and Nanad-Bhaujai. In Kaljug Prem or Piyawa Nasaïl, he has shown the consequences of drinking and impact on the family. In Putrabadh, a Stepmother plans to kill her Stepson. Ganga Asnan exposes the frauds of the dhongi Brahmins.[37] His plays and songs did the biggest impact on the caste system.[38]
He started a social movement by his plays. There are stories of young girls leaving the mandap and running away instead of docilely marrying the old men their parents have taken money from. In Nautanwa village in Uttar Pradesh, after the play was staged there, the villagers sent back a Baraat of an old bridegroom. After a performance in Dhanbad, Jharkhand, some members of the audience marched to a nearby temple and took an oath that they would stop this practice.[11]
Filmography[]
- Thakur made a special appearance in a song of Bhojpuri movie Bidesiya in 1963.[39] In the film, Thakur recites his own poetry, writes Avijit Ghosh in his book, Cinema Bhojpuri.
Critical Reputation[]
Bhikhari Thakur got immense appreciation for his play who used to reveal the reality of the society. People called him with the titles like Raibahadur and Shakespeare of Bhojpuri. Rahul Sankrityayan who gave him the title of Shakespeare has commented on him:[40]