Kathak exponent Manjari Chaturvedi remembers the reaction to her first academic project on courtesans she took to the public over a decade ago. "'Are you asking us to come attend a seminar on tawaifs?' People would ask, appalled," the Delhi-based artiste recalls, explaining the reason behind the surprise. "You see, you and I haven't seen a kotha or watched a tawaif perform. Our window to their world is through their portrayal in cinema, which often presents them as vamps, attaching derogatory undertones to their personal life." Ironic, considering it was the courtesans who contributed artistically and financially to the fledgling Hindi film industry a century ago.

Chaturvedi will tell the story of this significant contribution in her dance theatre production, Begums & Baijis of Bollywood: The First Women of Hindi Cinema, in the city today. But before we turn the pages of that story, Chaturvedi explains who a tawaif was — only a handful remain today — and wasn't. "They were excellent performers, who underwent rigorous training in classical dance and music for at least a decade. If prostitution is what their profession was about, why would they take the arduous route of learning to do that?" she says.