Book contents
- Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India
- Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Text
- Additional material
- Ruling Dynasties*
- Genealogies of Principal Musicians and Music Treatises
- Additional material
- 1 Chasing Eurydice
- 2 The Mughal Orpheus: Remembering Khushhal Khan Gunasamudra in Eighteenth-Century Delhi
- 3 The Rivals: Anjha Baras, Adarang and the Scattering of Shahjahanabad
- 4 The Courtesan and the Memsahib: Khanum Jan and Sophia Plowden at the Court of Lucknow
- 5 Eclipsed by the Moon: Mahlaqa Bai and Khushhal Khan Anup in Nizami Hyderabad
- 6 Faithful to the Salt: Mayalee Dancing Girl versus the East India Company in Rajasthan
- 7 Keeper of the Flame: Miyan Himmat Khan and the Last of the Mughal Emperors
- 8 Orphans of the Uprising: Late Mughal Echoes and 1857
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Tazkira: List of Names
- Index
5 - Eclipsed by the Moon: Mahlaqa Bai and Khushhal Khan Anup in Nizami Hyderabad
The Collected Writings of a Hereditary Musician
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2023
- Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India
- Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Examples
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on the Text
- Additional material
- Ruling Dynasties*
- Genealogies of Principal Musicians and Music Treatises
- Additional material
- 1 Chasing Eurydice
- 2 The Mughal Orpheus: Remembering Khushhal Khan Gunasamudra in Eighteenth-Century Delhi
- 3 The Rivals: Anjha Baras, Adarang and the Scattering of Shahjahanabad
- 4 The Courtesan and the Memsahib: Khanum Jan and Sophia Plowden at the Court of Lucknow
- 5 Eclipsed by the Moon: Mahlaqa Bai and Khushhal Khan Anup in Nizami Hyderabad
- 6 Faithful to the Salt: Mayalee Dancing Girl versus the East India Company in Rajasthan
- 7 Keeper of the Flame: Miyan Himmat Khan and the Last of the Mughal Emperors
- 8 Orphans of the Uprising: Late Mughal Echoes and 1857
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Tazkira: List of Names
- Index
Summary
In 1799, Mahlaqa Bai “Chanda”, “The Moon”, presented a book of her songs to the Deputy British Resident of Hyderabad, John Malcolm, in the middle of a music and dance party. Renowned as the first Indian courtesan to write a collection of Urdu poetry, she was equally famous for her affairs with powerful men at the Nizam’s court. Obscured by Mahlaqa Bai’s luminescence today is the man behind the Moon, her ustād (master-teacher) Khushhal Khan “Anup”. A hereditary musician in exile from Mughal Delhi, Anup left behind an enormous corpus of songs, several music-technical treatises, and an illustrated rāgamālā. In this chapter I use the illustrated writings of this single hereditary musician to unravel the stories of musical life, and the lives of these two extraordinary figures and their patrons, in Nizami Hyderabad c.1780−1830.
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- Music and Musicians in Late Mughal IndiaHistories of the Ephemeral, 1748–1858, pp. 117 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023