‘Eetha’ and the long fade of the tamasha tradition in Maharashtra

The lusty whistling of the audience calling out her name drowns her howls as she pushes out her baby backstage. Though still in pain, her ears are trained on the dholki players and the pedal harmonium. The crowds can’t wait any longer. Minutes after undergoing labour, a sari tied tightly around her abdomen, she steps onto the stage.

The woman is Vithabai Narayangaonkar, one of Maharashtra’s greatest tamasha artists. She is played by Shraddha Kapoor in Laxman Utekar’s forthcoming biopic Eetha. The infant born in dramatic circumstances is Kailash Narayangaonkar, now 64 years old and still carrying the story that is inseparable from his mother’s legend.

The recently released teaser of Eetha begins with Kailash Narayangaonkar’s birth on June 3, 1962, in Shikhar Shingnapur village in Maharashtra’s Satara district. By capturing the relentless demands of an art form that often consumed the lives of those who sustained it, the teaser has reopened a conversation extending beyond cinema.

The Hindi movie, scored by Ajay-Atul, will be released on August 28 in cinemas. Like Utekar’s Chhaava (2025), Eetha is a Bollywood biopic of a cultural icon in Maharashtra.

Vithabai was born in Pandharpur on July 1, 1935, into a Dalit Mang family steeped in tamasha, the performance tradition that combines music, dance, satire...

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