Life outside the kotha is really quite drab, remarks Manish Gaekwad, son of Rekha bai, the subject of his book “The Last Courtesan: Writing My Mother's Memoir”. Here, he chats about its sequel “Nautch Boy: A Memoir of My Life in the Kothas”, giving flashes of a life that sounds straight out of a Bollywood potboiler. 

The radio, according to the journalist-author-scriptwriter, never stopped playing at the kotha, with strains of Lata Mangeshkar and Mohammad Rafi songs filling the air. As a child, he recalls learning to move his hips like his legendary mother, with the other tawaifs cheering him on. He was also named Monty after Rishi Kapoor’s character in “Karz”, where his mother saw the name lit up in disco lights as an extra on the film sets in Mumbai. 

He describes life at an elite boarding school, while spending vacations at Kolkata's infamous Bandook Gully, and living part-time with relatives in the slums, feeling like an outsider everywhere but in the kotha. He also talks about his “illegitimate” father, how he got his surname, and not coming out as queer to his mother in her lifetime.

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Timestamps:

02:00 Dispelling myths about “kothas” and how they’re not brothels

05:16 His mother Rekha bai’s signature acrobatic dance move

11:44 How moving was dancing for him; music was in his blood

15:50 The radio never stopped playing in the kotha

18:00 Tawaifs don’t teach their children to be a girl or a boy

21:10 His mother didn’t know how to raise a boy

25:20 The Bandook Gully connection; living in the slums

31:37 How he got the name “Gaekwad”; when his mother and his father’s wife crossed paths

38:00 How he introduces himself to people; his “illegitimate” father

43:30 Mothering his mother through her illness; his relationship with his mother

46:55 On not coming out as queer to his mother

49:10 On being surrounded by sex in his adolescent years, “like a warm embrace”

53:30 On leading a solitary life, how it has shaped him

01:00:00 Being named Monty after Rishi Kapoor in the movie “Karz”

01:03:00 Growing up away from Mumbai’s glamour

01:07:23 Life as an author

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Episode ID: 1000724440985

GUID: https://api.spreaker.com/episode/67583859

Release Date: 02/09/2025, 00:45:45