Courtesans and Sisterhood: Inheriting Stories of Strength

 In a world where AI writes verses and imitates emotions, I often return to the stories of courtesans—because they remind me that no algorithm can capture the pulse of human sisterhood, woven through laughter, pain, and survival.

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The Courtesans’ World: Beyond Glitter and Gaze

I will never forget that lazy Sunday morning when Maa placed me in front of the small television set. With the seriousness of a teacher beginning a lesson (she was one, literally), she said, "Today, we are going to watch Pakeezah." 

When the screen lit up, I saw Meena Kumari, kohl-rimmed eyes, slow and sorrowful movements. Chandeliers danced above her head and her ghungroos jingled with every slow step she took. At first I didn't understand. Why was everyone - including the audience - looking at her with desire yet dismissing her with disdain? 

Maa leaned in close, voice even and a little soft: "They call her a fallen woman but look at her grace. Look at her pain. This is the greatest pain of society as it looks at women outside of its rules but do you see her strength? She carries herself with dignity even when the world refuses to grant her respect."

A few weeks later, she took me into another world—Umrao Jaan. Maa loved the poetry and the depth of it. Whenever Rekha would sing one of the ghazals, Maa would stop to interpret a line or two, to try to translate the pain and beauty of the words into some semblance I could grasp. 

But what I remember is not merely Umrao’s grace—it was the courtyard scenes. The way the women laughed together, teased one another, comforted each other after betrayals. They were not just performers; they were friends united in their loss, their fleeting joy. 

Maa poked at my ribs and whispered: "Did you see the way they hold each other? Even when men betray them, even when society turns away, women sustain each other. That is sisterhood."

At that time, I thought I was just doing the thing of watching a movie with Maa—spending long afternoons together infused with music, poetry, and a plate of cut-up mangoes. I would only learn later, in the ages to come, that Maa was planting in me the truth of women's survival, no matter how the world calls them, is based on solidarity.

The Many Faces of Sisterhood

Sisterhood, I have learned, has different faces as we grow. The case with an old friend takes the form of hanging late night phone calls where we confess our failings, laugh to cries of, “Remember the time…,” and remind each other that we are not the only ones stumbling through life. Those talks provide me with a haven, the kind of safety that echoes the laughter and whispered secrets of courtesans’ laughter within the courtyards. 

With Maa, sisterhood looked quieter, more like something unspoken. It’s in the way she held my hand with metaphorical strength while watching Umrao Jaan, instructing me without words how women carry pain with grace. It is in the recipes that she bequeaths me—the meals complicated by comparison but not by nature—as if they are meant to be a family heirloom, and filled with a pinch of resilience alongside the turmeric. Maa taught me that sisterhood can even exist between a mother and her daughter as an element of companionship, not hierarchy. 

And, of course, there is my mother-in-law. I expected to feel the distance—but instead, I am experiencing a woman willing to tell me stories during her formation years and how she occupied space in a system of constraints eclipsing mine. I see in her another woman: one who has survived storms; in sharing those storms, she gives me the kind of solidarity courtesans must have once offered each other: “I see your struggle; it mirrors mine.”

Together—friend, Maa, mother-in-law—they form my circle of women. Different roles, different generations, yet bound by the same invisible thread: a sisterhood that nurtures, heals, and keeps us standing. 

From courtesans who found kinship in candlelit salons, to Maa who showed me Pakeezah and Umrao Jaan, to the women in my life who remind me I am never alone—the message is the same:

Even in an age where AI can mimic poetry and predict emotions, it cannot recreate the warmth of a hand held in fear, the quiet solidarity of women laughing through their tears—because sisterhood is not data, it is lived, felt, and inherited.

Sisterhood is what saves us, what shapes us, and what keeps us whole.