Every time I watch a Bollywood item number, that is increasingly becoming a sought after art form by both aspiring and waning stars, and I watch ‘empowered’ women displaying their sexuality, objectifying themselves, tantalising men with their bodies and their flirtatious gaze, challenging them to accept their invitation, I can see beyond them the faces of hundreds of smiling devadasis and nautch girls, women well versed in song and dance who were mocked and rejected by puritanical society as ‘prostitutes’. This is what happens when we deny one aspect of dance and favour another.

Somewhere in the 19th century, active efforts were made to strip dance of sexuality and sensuality.u00a0It became all about spirituality and union with God. That was the only way it could be rescued from the critical gaze of social reformers who saw anything feminine and physical with suspicion. So yes, the girl could sing and dance above love and longing but the fact that the body was being used to communicate desire had to be denied by making every word, every phrase, and every action allegorical. The lover she called out was the inner divine. The beloved who tortured her was not allowed to be a physical person who made her juices flow; it had to be an abstract idea.