Anindya Banerjee at Studio 21, where his documentary films Tawai’f and Khayal were screened last Saturday. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyay

Studio 21 came alive to the sounds of ghungroo and the strains of classical singing, as Tawi’f and Khayal, two documentary films directed by sarod player and music scholar Anindya Banerjee, were screened last Saturday evening.

Containing rare footage of live shows, interviews and clippings from films and concerts, they were funded by the Asian Music Circuit.

“I made Tawi’f in 2008 and Khayal in 2009. Tawi’f was shown in a programme attended by the likes of Prince Charles,” Banerjee, who also teaches music in London, said at the studio in Dover Terrace.

Tawi’f, of 23 minutes, delves into the historical background of tawaifs and also recreates the grandeur of the world they lived and worked in, their cultural finesse and their prowess in classical music and dance.

“The western world is completely unaware of the nature of the tawaif and their profession. They think they are prostitutes. But tawaifs are of different kinds. The baijis only sing, those who were addressed as jaan would sing and dance, the kanij was the serving girl and the khanagi the prostitute,” explained Banerjee.

The film includes clippings from Jalsaghar, Pakeezah, Shatranj Ke Khiladi and Umrao Jaan. There are also rare photographs of old baijis like Janki Bai, Gauhar Jaan, Malka Jaan, Shidheshwari Devi and Heera Bai.

The director had a lot of trouble collecting material for the film, especially the baijis and getting them to talk on camera.

“I went to Lucknow, Benaras and Rajasthan in search of the old baijis. In an interview, an old baiji from Rajasthan talked of her performances and also sang. I have included live clippings of the performance of Rani Bai from Benaras and two practising baijis from Calcutta,” recounted Banerjee.

But the baijis they are a changin’. If once they received strict training in classical music and dance, today, they are having to curry favour by performing to Bollywood item numbers.

“One thing that I couldn’t show in the film was the nath utarna, or the deflowering, for obvious constraints,” Banerjee said, while interacting with the audience after the screening.

Khayal, spelt the way “Bengalis pronounce the word”, talks of the rise, development and growth of the genre. The format is the same as the other film — shots and clippings of performances, interspersed with interviews.

“For Khayal I interviewed Dr Vidyadhar Vyas, Pandit Ulhas Kashalkar, Ustad Rashid Khan, Vidushi Purnima Sen and Shantanu Bhattacharya. The film was made to give the western world an insight into the style and genre of singing. There are also rare clippings of performances by the likes of Bhimsen Joshi and Pandit Jasraj,” said Banerjee.

The experts who have been interviewed talk of the ragas and the gayaki or different styles of singing, often breaking into song themselves to demonstrate their point.

Tawi’f and Khayal are part of a series and Banerjee is working on more music-related documentaries, which are also being funded by the Asian Music Circuit.