About Those Mujras

Some people are visiting this site in a search for mujras because they’re looking for softcore porn.  That’s understandable, because the mujra sort of has a double meaning. Wikipedia used to have* a pretty good description of its origins…  It was a dignified dance once, but due to political and social upheaval, it did for a while become the province of prostitutes.  However, it seems to have undergone a more arty and slightly more wholesome revival and has become a fairly normal feature of mainstream Indian and Pakistani cinema.  With its complicated history and mixed reputation, it’s probably similar in some ways to belly dancing or to the recent, more arty revival of burlesque dancing here in the U.S.

My interest in mujras is certainly not without some sexual aspect, but to me, watching a real mujra is far more interesting and aesthetically satisfying than looking at softcore porn or some artless striptease dance.  Although, I admit, if you do a search for mujras, you’re going to find a lot of stuff out there that is nothing more than striptease.  But a real mujra, with its particular traditional features, is something different from that.

As Wikipedia puts it:

Mujra is a part of classical kathak.  Although many believe that (sort of true too) this is the variation of kathak that bears suggestive connotations, most kathak artistes perform the mujra quite gracefully and in a dignified manner.

Mujra inherits from kathak a lot of intricate arm movements, and that’s one reason I really like it.  People in the west don’t use their arms and hands in dancing the way they do in the countries of South Asia.  To me, arms can be as important in dancing as the feet, and the use of the arms in Indian dancing is probably better than in dancing anywhere else.

And I have found in my recent search for mujras on the Internet that no one is as pleasing to watch as Megha.  Part of this does have to do with my sexual aesthetics.  I like the fact that she is not as skinny as so many dancers; she has some substance to her body yet can still move with great speed and agility.  And I do like the speed, maybe because of my own experiences with dancing to hardcore techno and punk.  There are also probably many other good aspects to her technique that I could spell out more specifically if I wanted to think over this carefully, maybe even do some more research, and play dance critic.  But for the present purposes, let’s just say that I think she’s great.

I’ve changed the Megha mujras on this blog a couple of times, trying to find just the right ones.  There probably are mujras out there in which she’s done (even) better dancing, but I also was conscious of the music that I wanted to include.  I chose the most recent one, especially, for that modern punjabi sound, with its particular rhythms, electronics, and fun vocals.

I’ll be getting a little more into that punjabi sound in the future.  The biggest contemporary music that uses it, of course, is our modern-day bhangra.  It took me a while to get to like real punjabi bhangra (as opposed to other contemporary desi music, which might be called bhangra sometimes but maybe really isn’t); however, it’s growing on me.  There are a couple of record stores near me in Jackson Heights that sell almost nothing but bhangra, and one of them is located right next door to an Indian restaurant that has the best reasonably priced chicken masala in New York.  So, no promises yet, but I might be posting some reviews of real bhangra in the near future – along with more mujras.

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* Note, five months after this post:  Had to revise because Wikipedia’s definition (at least as it existed) seems to have disappeared.  Will be looking for a different one soon – and revise this post more.  (I’m writing this P.S. on March 15, because I’m seeing that this post is still getting a bunch of hits, strangely enough.)
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Note, a year and three months after this post: Wow, people are still landing here, a lot. A lot has happened in my education of Indian dance and music since I wrote this. For one thing, I’ve gone off the stage dance mujras (though I still like Megha just fine) and have developed full knowledge and appreciation of Indian film mujras. These are more artificial in a way, because they are in a fictional and usually historical setting (courtesans and all that stuff), but the artistry of some of these dances is just fantastic. My favorite Bollywood mujras are those done by some of the best golden age dancers: Vyjayanthimala, Padmini, Minoo Mumtaz… As I’ve said, though, the word “mujra” obviously can have very different meanings, and the Pakistani stage dancers are a very different thing from the mujra that I’m more likely to watch now. I still like them, though…

Regarding the comments about Punjabi music… I seem to have gotten off that a little. I still appreciate contemporary desi sounds, but am not so much into the real bhangra these days. To some degree, my tastes have also gone south, so to speak. I fell in love with another “reformed” dance, bharatanatyam, pulled out of some disrepute in the 1930s and revised into a high art. I get a lot of joy out of watching that kind of dance, and have for some time at this point. I therefore also realized how much I like carnatic music too.

The music store that I was referring to seems to have closed, or at least it’s not in the place where I remember it. There are a couple of stores I still go to that sell the fashionable music, but I go to them mainly for classic films (which they also sell, as do quite a few other stores around here). The place I was thinking of that had the good chicken masala doesn’t impress me so much these days. I’ve kind of gotten away from spending extra money in restaurants and when I get food from this area, it’s mainly from the trucks. (There are good ones along 73rd Street.) I also am buying lot more old Indian movies now, sort of instead of the restaurant food.