Paper short abstract:

Piro’s autobiographical and dramatic 160 Kafis have in recent years been re-imagined in two plays. This paper will look at the questions that emerge out of her fabrication and a contemporary re-fabrication of her life.

Paper long abstract:

Piro's autobiographical, the One Hundred and Sixty Kafis, lends itself to the theatrical metaphor. Here Piro (d. 1872), a Muslim prostitute of Lahore, Punjab, relates her abandoning her profession in preference for a spiritual life, taking refuge with Guru Gulabdas, a Sikh of liberal, even libertarian mould. In her verses Piro assuages the fears in her Gulabdasi establishment of her Muslim background and degraded profession by re-enacting the drama of the heroine Sita of the epic Ramayan, in terms of her abduction and rescue, in her own life. The theatrical tone of her writing is visible at other moments too, for instance Piro dramatizing her encounter with her former co-religionists. She also uses the imaginary of Bhakti devotion to legitimize her spiritual quest and her place beside her guru.

In recent years Piro's story has captured the imagination of the Punjabis. Two plays have been penned on her life, where her autobiographical writing have been supplemented with doses of (gendered) imagination. Her various writings have begun to be compiled, and she is compared to various women bhaktas, one in a tradition rather than as one setting her own rules. Piro's performance of herself and the various performances of Piro's self - the fabrication and the re-fabrication of Piro - raise multiple questions. Significant among these are the specificity of voice that her ambiguous status on the edges of society gave her, and the representation of that liminality by a contemporary literary imagination.