'Tamasha artist Mangala Bhansode is all curves and ample bosom and when she hollers in English “I know you want it, but you’re never going to get it,” lyrics from the hit Bollywood song Sheila ki Jawani, the audience responds with frenzy. Flinging in the air their homespun Gandhi caps, woolen scarves and gloves, even the blankets they’d brought along, they yell back in English: “Once More! Once More! Once More!”
None of this would be surprising if Bhansode wasn’t a 60-year-old grandmother. Or if her audience of 3,000 wasn’t comprised entirely of men. Or if most of the men weren’t Marathi-speaking farmers in a conservative Maharashtrian village far removed from the world of urban India.'
Read the rest of my second installment of The Other India for The NYT's India Ink site, here.
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