This book explores comic performance in Pakistan through the vibrant Indo-Muslim tradition of the Punjabi bhand which now holds a marginal space in contemporary weddings. With irreverent repartee, gen
This is the first full-length book to provide an introduction to badhai performances throughout South Asia, examining their characteristics and relationships to differing contexts in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. Badhai’s repertoires of songs, dances, prayers, and comic repartee are performed by socially marginalised hijra , khwaja sira , and trans communities. They commemorate weddings, births and other celebratory heteronormative events. The form is improvisational and responds to particular contexts, but also moves across borders. For students of theatre and performance, anthropology, religion, gender and cultural studies, this book illuminates an important form of performance, considering its changing status and uncertain futures.The book draws from anthropology, theatre and performance studies, music and sound studies, ethnomusicology, queer and transgender studies, and sustained ethnographic fieldwork to examine badhai ’s place-based dynamics, transcultural features, and
