http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautanki
Nautanki (Hindi: नौटंकी) is a famous folk theater and operatic drama form, popular in northern India especially in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh [1]. Before the advent of cinema in India, it was the most popular form of entertainment prevalent in these areas. Usually a nautanki consisted of folklore and mythological dramas with interludes of folk songs and dances. But, now it has taken other forms. In many areas it has been restricted only to female dance shows. Consequently, this art is losing popularity and goodwill among admirers day by day.
Nautanki has its origins in the folklore of North India about a princess with incomparable beauty who was so delicate to weigh only as much as a flower. This folklore took the shape of a drama then known as sangeets (musicals) by the name, Nautanki Shehzadi ("The Story of Princess Nautanki"), soon it became so popular that the name became that of the genre itself. The word, nautanki, comprises two words, nau meaning "nine" and tank referring to a "silver coin weighing four grams", and thus metaphorically implies that the graceful princess weighs only 36 grams (9 X 4 grams).
Most of the generic labels for folk theatre in North India are derived from words meaning "stage, play, show, processional theatre," for example, the Manch of Madhya Pradesh (from Sanskrit mancakam , "stage"), the Ram and Ras Lilas of Uttar Pradesh (Sanskrit lila , "sport, play"), Maharashtra's Tamasha (Arabic tamasha , "entertainment, spectacle"), Bengal's Jatra (Sanskrit yatra , "procession, pilgrimage"). In the parallel etymology conjured by Hindi scholars, nautanki has been traced to nataka , the Sanskrit high drama, via a hypothetical term nataki . The argument is inconclusive in the absence of references to nataki the dramatic literature. Taking another approach, Hindi novelist Amritlal Nagar explains the term as the theoretical admission price, nau tanka , nine silver coins, or as the fee paid by a patron for sponsoring a performance, nau taka , nine rupees. Others believe the word refers to a distinctive music and drumming style, nay tankar , "new sound."[12]
Beyond these speculations, folklore preserves the story of Nautanki, the beautiful princess of Multan. The dramatized romance of Phul Singh and Nautanki (although it may be older) first appears in published form as Khushi Ram's Sangit rani nautanki ka (The musical drama of Queen Nautanki) in 1882 (fig. 1). R. C. Temple lists "Rani Nautanki and the Panjabi Lad" in his index of legends collected from the Punjab in the 1880s. In the early 1900s, folk-drama poets from the Hathras area, Govind Chaman, Muralidhar, and the famed Chiranjilal and Natharam team, composed their much published versions of the story; they had many imitators (fig. 2). The popularity of the tale grew with repeated performances, as the folk theatre moved out from the Punjab region and Haryana into Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the twentieth century.[13]
The traditions of the Nautanki theatre, moreover, include a metastory. The name of the princess Nautanki became so famous that it came to signify the theatre genre itself.
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