At the outset I would like to congratulate Gorakh Thorat for choosing to translate Abhiram Bhadkamkar’s novel Asa Balgandharva, and not any other account of Balgandharva’s life, which are available in plenty, in Marathi. Bhadkamkar’s account is by far the fullest account of the star-actor’s life in one place, in Marathi!
Secondly, I must also make a confession: I can read and understand Hindi and I did read Thorat’s translation fully, even as I had read Bhadkamkar’s book earlier. But, I am not an expert in Hindi and therefore my review does not claim to comment on the Hindi translation. All I can say is that I found it as readable as the Marathi novel.
Thorat rightly translates the Marathi title Asa Balgandharva as Balgandharva: Adhunik Marathi Rangmanch ki ek Mithak ki Talash, because the Marathi word ‘asa’ (lit, ‘this’ or ‘like this’) has a resonance among Marathi readers as the word comes from a well-known verse on Balgandharva, the celebrated female impersonator actor in early modern Marathi theatre. But that resonance would be lost in Hindi. More than that, in titling this novel as a search for a myth, Thorat indicates the nature of the novel: it is indeed a search, an exploration of the available fragments of an archive in Marathi which comprises some biographies, some unpublished sources and a few well known anecdotes/rumours/legends. Balgandharva, nee Narayan Shripad Rajhans (1888-1967), a female impersonator actor-singer in the newly shaping commercial and ‘modern’ Marathi theatre in colonial India was not only popular but was a ‘star-heroine’ and a trendsetting icon in the transformations in the idea of femininity. Befitting a ‘star’ in the genre of Sangit-Natak (musical-theatre), his life had a public presence engulfed in legends and rumours. Additionally, his life and career also went through rather unusual ups and downs. As a ‘novel’ Balgandharva retains the myth and the search for it becomes a theme in that novel.