Bidesia is a form of Bhojpuri folk theatre from Bihar, created in the early twentieth century by the playwright and performer Bhikhari Thakur. Its name comes from “bides”, a far or foreign land, so a bidesia is a man who leaves home to find work. The plays follow that migration and, above all, the grief of the wife left behind.
Key takeaways
- Bidesia is a Bhojpuri folk theatre form born in Bihar’s Saran region, named after Bhikhari Thakur’s most famous play.
- Its subject is labour migration and separation: men leaving villages for the cities, and the women who wait.
- Bhikhari Thakur (1887 to 1971) is widely called the “Shakespeare of Bhojpuri”.
- The style mixes song, dance and comedy, and was performed by all-male troupes using launda naach, where men play the women’s roles.
- It sits alongside other travelling folk forms like Jatra and Nautanki.
What is Bidesia theatre?
Bidesia is a genre of Bhojpuri-language folk performance that joins acting, singing and dancing on a simple raised stage, with the audience gathered close on three sides. It takes its name from the play Bidesia by Bhikhari Thakur, which became so popular that the whole tradition came to be called after it. The word itself means a person who has gone away to a distant land, usually for work, leaving family behind in the village. That single idea sits at the heart of the form.
Who was Bhikhari Thakur?
Bhikhari Thakur was born in 1887 in Qutubpur, in the Saran region of present-day Bihar, and died in 1971. He came from a barber family and had little formal schooling, but he taught himself to read so he could study the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas, whom he treated as his literary guru. He built his own troupe and wrote, directed and acted in his plays. For his huge following among ordinary people, the critic Dr. Manoranjan Prasad Sinha called him the “Shakespeare of Bhojpuri”, and the name has stayed with him.
Why is Bidesia about migration and separation?
In Thakur’s lifetime, poverty pushed many men from the Bhojpuri-speaking districts of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh to work in Calcutta, in Assam’s plantations and further afield. Bidesia put that exact experience on stage. Its best-known story follows a man who migrates to the city, drifts into a new relationship there and leaves his first wife stranded in the village. Crucially, the plays give the stage to her sorrow and not only to his journey, which is what made them land so hard with village audiences who knew the same ache.
How was Bidesia performed?
Performances were open-air and improvised, lit by simple lanterns, and carried by music more than scenery. Thakur drew on folk song forms and on the energy of neighbouring traditions such as Nautanki and tamasha, backed by dholak, harmonium and manjeera. Because custom kept women off the stage, female parts were played by young men in a convention called launda naach. Comedy, song and social comment sat side by side, a mix that also runs through India’s later theatre of protest.
A timeline of Bhikhari Thakur and Bidesia
Why does Bidesia still matter?
Bidesia turned a hard economic reality into living theatre, and it did so in the people’s own language, with their own songs. It gave a voice to migrant workers and, just as importantly, to the women who stayed. Today it is studied as one of India’s richest folk forms and performed anew by artists keeping the tradition alive. You can place it on our wider map of Indian folk theatre, or see how it compares with codified stage traditions in our guide to folk and classical theatre.
Frequently asked questions
What does the word Bidesia mean?
It comes from the Bhojpuri “bides”, meaning a far or foreign land. A bidesia is someone who has left home to work somewhere distant, leaving family behind.
Who created Bidesia theatre?
The playwright, poet and performer Bhikhari Thakur (1887 to 1971), often called the “Shakespeare of Bhojpuri”, created it in Bihar in the early twentieth century.
What language is Bidesia performed in?
Bhojpuri, the language spoken across western Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, which is part of why it spoke so directly to the communities it portrayed.
Is Bidesia still performed today?
Yes. It survives in the Bhojpuri region and is revived by contemporary theatre-makers, and Bhikhari Thakur’s plays are widely studied.
Sources: Sangeet Natak Akademi documentation of Bhojpuri folk theatre; Wikipedia entries on Bhikhari Thakur and the play Bidesiya; Village Square, “Bidesia, a ballad of grief from the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri”; The Theatre Times, “Bidesia: folk theatre of eastern India”. Note: sources differ on the premiere year of Bidesia (1912 or 1917) and on some biographical details.