"This is the first book to provide an introduction to badhai that charts its performance throughout South Asia and examines its characteristics and relationship to the differing contexts of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. With its repertoire of devotional prayers, songs, dances, and comic repartee performed by socially marginalized trans feminine hijra and khwaja sira, badhai has long been recognized as vital to these communities' identities. For students of theatre and performance, anthropology, religion, gender and cultural studies, the book illuminates an important form of performance, considering its changing status and uncertain future"--
This is the first full-length book to provide an introduction to badhai performances throughout South Asia, examining their characteristics and relationships to differing contexts in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Badhai's repertoires of songs, dances, prayers, and comic repartee are performed by socially marginalised hijra, khwaja sira, and trans communities. They commemorate weddings, births and other celebratory heteronormative events. The form is improvisational and responds to particular contexts, but also moves across borders. For students of theatre and performance, anthropology, religion, gender and cultural studies, this book illuminates an important form of performance, considering its changing status and uncertain futures.
The book draws from anthropology, theatre and performance studies, music and sound studies, ethnomusicology, queer and transgender studies, and sustained ethnographic fieldwork to examine badhai's place-based dynamics, transcultural features, and communications across the hijrascape. This vital study analyses these performances' layered, scalar, and sensorial practices, extending ways of understanding hijra-khwaja sira-trans performance.
