Crafting Lives in Music: Women Vocalists in Early 20th-Century Bombay

A significant development in Indian classical music during the early 20th century was the emergence of women trained in the vocal genre of Hindustani raga music. 1 The city of Bombay, now Mumbai, which was growing in importance as a commercial centre in western India from the mid-19th century into the 20th, was a locus for this transition. As more and more women aspired to professions in the performing arts, the conditions under which they could be seen and heard, and were allowed to live, came to be constrained in new ways. Through stories of five women musicians in Bombay who led very different personal and professional lives, this article discusses the social and economic challenges they faced and the aesthetic, performative and professional choices that had to be made. Spanning over five decades, these stories offer glimpses into the possibilities, limitations and contradictions that were part of a changing musical landscape. They also give insights into the dispersed ways in which Hindustani raga music emerged and gradually became a viable profession for women of diverse strata.