Photographer Abhishek Khedekar’s upcoming solo show at the NCPA’s Dilip Piramal Art Gallery captures the inner workings of a troupe that performs tamasha, a Maharashtrian folk theatre form encompassing comedy, dance and social critique.

By Neerja Deodhar

He was all of four when Abhishek Khedekar first found himself drawn to tamasha, an electric, multifaceted folk theatrical form from rural Maharashtra. As a young child in the coastal village of Dapoli, he heard the strains of songs coming from a tent pitched nearby, where performers blended music with dance, comedy and social critique. In the 1990s, when the art form drew in audiences in the thousands, Khedekar’s mother asserted that attending a show was not safe for a child. But the memory of this visiting troupe of artistes persisted, prompting him to embark on a six-year-long photographic project documenting tamasha groups and their pursuit of a theatrical form beyond the proscenium that perhaps demands more of a practitioner than it gives back.

The project took him to Pandharpur, where the third-generation owner of the Tukaram Khedkar and  Pandurang Mule Tamasha Company agreed to let the photographer stay and travel with the 70-member group, as long as he took full responsibility for his equipment and made no fuss about sleeping in the truck that took them across districts such as Beed, Satara and Sangli.

This kind of nomadic life is typical for tamasha artistes, who once travelled in bullock carts, carrying with them the material required to set up a stage as well as musical instruments, like the one-string tuntuna and halgi drum.

Undaunted, Khedekar spent time with them and another company, the Dattoba Tambe Shirolikar Lokanatya Tamasha Mandal, on and off from 2016 to 2022. “At the start, it was difficult for them to open up to me because I was a stranger. A month later, they began to recognise me as one of their own,” he says,  referring to the ancillary duties he would be entrusted with in the travelling troupe. “And though I’d refrain from calling myself a tamasgir (tamasha artiste), I became part of the company ecosystem, observing every process that led up to the performance.” The result of Khedekar’s assimilation into the troupe was a photobook titled Tamasha (2023), propelled by him winning the Loose Joints x Mahler & LeWitt Studios Publishing Performance Residency Prize in 2022.

Tamasha is defined by dynamism and spontaneity, effortlessly transitioning from lavani to khadi gammat (literally translates to ‘performed while standing’), to dances about Krishna and his gopis. Did the medium of still photography ever seem at odds with tamasha? Khedekar admits that he did consider video-based documentation but ultimately chose docu-fiction premised on still photography and collaging; the latter allows him to introduce layers of meaning and history. In one shot taken mid-performance, he superimposes passport-size studio-style images of the company’s founders, mirroring the reverence that the current tamasgirs have for them.

“There’s a ‘synesthesia’ to the art form in the way it brings together light, sound and the chaos of the audience. Photography allowed me to pause this chaos and capture otherwise fleeting moments, like the final look of a dancer’s make-up before they took to the stage. The stillness of the images is also my way of encouraging the viewer to stay with them, inviting them to create their own interpretations,” Khedekar shares. During past exhibitions, he has imbued gallery spaces with the sounds and textures he encountered, from the announcements made before the company’s arrival, to printing images on the wooden logs and planks used to set up stages.

The inclusion of archival images in the photobook and the exhibition, curated by veteran photographer Bharat Sikka, nudges the viewer to recognise that this art form is one with a storied history that goes back two centuries. According to tradition, companies are invited by villages or districts to stage shows after the harvest season ends, coinciding with jatras centred on the worship of local deities. Scholars suggest that tamasha has been influenced by a diversity of arts, from the work of shahirs (poets) to folk forms like the theatrical dashavtar and musical gondhal.

Over time, two types emerged: the older, bawdy sangeet-baari, focused on song and dance; and the dholki-baari, which has more dramatic elements. Consider the graceful portrait of the late Pandurag Mule dressed as a female character, adjusting the pallu of his saree, sourced from the company founders’ personal collections. It was not—and is not—uncommon for men to take on women’s roles. It is also not uncommon for female performers to be subjected to harassment and objectification.

There is an intriguing push and pull inherent in the images. From a close-up shot of their ghunghroos, to the intimacy of used bindis stuck on a jewellery box, we learn about the interiority of the lives of the tamasha company members. Yet there is scant detail about who they are—a conscious choice by the photographer. Over the six years that he has spent in their presence, performers have opened up to him about the stigma that comes with practising a performance art long associated with marginalised communities of Maharashtra, such as the Kolhatis and Mahars among others. Some are also subjected to ridicule and disrespect because they are viewed as naachnewalas and gaanewalas—performers of ‘low’ art.

But there is also something deeply empowering about this work. “A woman once told me, ‘Tamasha has given us a new identity—Lokkalawant—a new caste.’ It is an identity that enables them to take pride in their skills and selves. This transformation is critical because they don’t perform for their own pleasure; this is their livelihood,” Khedekar explains.

The photographer lays great emphasis on the labour behind the scenes, conveyed through images of a man carrying lightbulbs around his neck like garlands, and the scribbled lyrics of a song. It is hard work that follows hours, if not days, of driving on dusty roads. An unseen consequence of being on the move for long stretches of the year is a dire lack of official documentation such as birth certificates, preventing them from accessing government schemes. “Some come into the tamasha fold for the love of the art, some marry into it and assume accompanying roles, for instance, of a singer or an electrician. Others are born into it,” Khedekar says. One such tamasgir, in her nineties, told the photographer about her upbringing in a troupe. Two of her daughters, now married, also work in tamasha companies. For those who are committed to their art, the underlying sentiment is to simply keep going.

Khedekar’s documentation of tamasgirs assumes a new urgency as the art form is at an inflection point. Five- to seven-hour long performances, once a draw among audiences, now see some people walk out early. “Famous film songs in Marathi and Hindi have taken centrestage, and vag natya skits that spoke of social issues like dowry aren’t as well received … The company I trailed attracted 800 to 900 viewers, a decrease attributed to the expansion of outlets for entertainment, mainly smartphones,” the photographer says. Still, the reception to the Tukaram Khedkar and Pandurang Mule Tamasha Company’s shows, which, Khedekar says, compel audiences to travel across villages, remains encouraging. “I don’t see this as the end of tamasha; merely a change in its nature and the way it will be staged in the years to come.”

This article was originally published in the May 2026 issue of ON Stage.