'These instruments, they demand a lot. She demands a price every time she has to come out of the bag,' Imla Santappa Halsapor says, lovingly caressing the hollow drum she carries. Her lips are attempting a slow smile, but her eyes have a faraway look; perhaps she is thinking of earlier days, when the business of living first required reverence to the goddess Yellamma and only thereafter the act of pleasing a partner. Undoubtedly, times have changed. And so has the Devadasi system and all that the dedication of these girls entails – to themselves, to their customers and to the local community.
The women sitting together have little in common. The oldest at about 65, Yamunavva, utterly gorgeous and still shockingly bold in the things she says to men, is from the richer lot. Her gold chains, cotton sari with zari – a form of intricate embroidery using gold and silver threads – border and the heavy natt, the pearl-and-gold nose-pin, are proof of her high standing in the local community. They also indicate the wealth of her hiriyavaru, the permanent partner that the Devadasi can take on, apart from other customers.
Then there is Reshma Taugeri, 34 years old, almost fragile and unable to work her drums fast enough to keep up with Imla, in her fifties, from neighbouring Mahalingapura. Imla, of the older lot, is draped in a simple sari, for her hiriyavaru died almost 25 years ago. Her feminine charms are restricted to the coquettish lyrics of the Chowdike Pada, the traditional verses in which Devadasis are trained, accompanied by the tingle of her two dozen green bangles.
One of the few commonalities between these women is that they are all jogathis, servants of Yellamma, who is worshipped in some parts of Karnataka. There is a second link, as well: none of them wants their art form to survive, the thousands of songs in which they are versed being an integral part of the repressive system that they are now collectively fighting to eliminate. They say that the youngest Devadasi is now in her late 20s or early 30s; there have reportedly been no fresh dedications in the past few years, though the Karnataka state government banned the practice way back in 1982.