¹ For the use of diacritics throughout the article, refer to ISO 15919: http://www.bahaistudies.net/asma/assamese_romanization.pdf; 2012 version: https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/assamese.pdf (both accessed 15 November 2025).

² Here, I am referring to the linguistic context, as my study pertains to mobile theatre plays staged in the Assamese language. For Bodo language theatre groups, namely Sourangmanju Theatre and Bordoisila Theatre, see K. K. Kalita, Bhramyaman Theatarar Itihas [History of Bhramyamaan theatre], (Guwahati, 2011), pp. 13–23.

³ Historically, mobile theatre was influenced by folk genres like Jatra in the early twentieth century and stage plays during the 1980s with socio-political themes responding to the Assam movement (1979–1985). At the turn of the twenty-first century, however, a shift took place towards stage adaptations of Shakespearean plays and Hollywood films such as Titanic and Jurassic Park. Mobile theatre has also been shaped by popular Hindi cinema in India. Thus, it does not adhere to any fixed categories or types of theatre.

⁴ The theatre season in Assam begins in July every year, after the rains have receded. It starts with rehearsals in residential camps for each mobile theatre group, and the touring period follows from the end of August until 12 April. With the annual harvest festival of Bohag Bihu being celebrated in mid April, members of the theatre troupes return to their natal family homes. The next couple of months are then considered a break from work, or the off-season, until rehearsals begin for the following theatre season. A large number of audiences also buy a season ticket to watch several plays instead of booking for just one show.

⁵ L. Mulvey, ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’, Screen 16.3 (1975), pp. 6–18.

⁶ Officially known as Gadadhar Singha, Gadapani reigned over the Ahom kingdom from 1681 CE until 28 February 1696. He established the rule of Tungkhungia dynasty.

⁷ A. Mahanta, Journey of Assamese Women: 1826–1937 (Guwahati, 2008), pp. 60–61.

⁸ Ibid, pp. 62–63.

⁹ Handique was born to an Ahom family in Panidihingia village of Golaghat district in Assam. Her birth year is mentioned as 1915 or 1920 as per different sources, but she was 13 years old when she became involved in Assamese cinema.

¹⁰ Porasor is a well-known actor who began her acting career as part of the Assamese film industry, Jollywood, towards the latter half of 1990s. She is currently the lead actor-cum-producer of the Awahan Theatre group. She is also one of the most highly paid actors in Assam, consistently working towards a new wave of women-centric plays on the mobile theatre stage.

¹¹ The online comments about the YouTube video of the live performance of Joymoti (2021–2022) showcase the appreciation and praise for Prastuti Porasor’s portrayal of the leading role. The story of Joymoti was also staged in the 1960s by the Nataraj Theatre group in Uttam Barua’s play, Jerengar Sati (1962). The role was played by Anupama Bhattacharjya (belonging to a Brahmin household and one of the first female performers of mobile theatre in the post-independence period). In Merajur Rahman Baruah’s documentary The Nine Months (2010), she recalls audience members sobbing when she enacted Joymoti’s role and after staging the death scene. They would visit her backstage to convey their appreciation through hugs, kisses, and blessings.

¹² S. Greenblatt, ‘A mobility studies manifesto’, in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, (ed.) S. Greenblatt (Cambridge, 2010), pp. 50–54.

¹³ Ibid, p. 250.

¹⁴ P. Merriman and L. Pearce, ‘Mobility and the humanities’, Mobilities 12.4 (2017), pp. 493–508.

¹⁵ Cited in S. Berger, D. Meinhardt, and M. Wallraven, ‘Mobility in English and American literature and culture, 1500–1900’ (KULT online 31, 2012).

¹⁶ L. Singh, Raising the Curtain: Recasting Women Performers in India (Hyderabad, 2017), pp. 29–76.

¹⁷ B. Dasi, My Story and My Life as an Actress, (ed./trans.) R. Bhattacharya (New Delhi, 1998), p. 97.

¹⁸ N. Bhatia, Performing Women/Performing Womanhood: Theatre, Politics, and Dissent in North India (New Delhi, 2010), p. xi.

¹⁹ A pioneer of Indian cinema, Dadasaheb Phalke (1870–1944) directed and produced the first silent feature film Raja Harishchandra [King Harishchandra] in 1913. In his second full-length feature film, Mohini Bhasmasur (1913), he cast Durgabai Kamat and her daughter Kamlabai Gokhale in lead female roles, going against societal norms.

²⁰ Bhatia, Performing Women/Performing Womanhood, p. xii.

²¹ Both the film and the live performance of the play are available online via YouTube.

²² J. W. Scott, ‘Gender: A useful category of historical analysis’, American Historical Review 91.5 (1986), pp. 1053–1075.

²³ The interviews have been anonymised to maintain confidentiality of the respondents.

²⁴ I visited Jyoti Chitrabon Film Studio (Guwahati), Aideu Handique Museum (Golaghat), and the National Museum of Indian Cinema (Mumbai) between 2022 and 2025.

²⁵ In 1826, 600 years of Ahom rule ended with the Treaty of Yandabo, and in 1836 the British colonial government imposed Bengali as the official language in Assam for administrative purposes. This led to the rise of Assamese nationalism along linguistic lines, initiated by Calcutta-educated youths like Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, who started the literary publication Orunodoi (New dawn, 1846–1883), with the help of the American Baptist Mission. Later, in 1873, Assamese was re-introduced in school education. See Y. Saikia, Fragmented Memories: Struggling to Be Tai-Ahom in India (Durham, NC, 2004), pp. 37–76; J. Sharma, Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India (Durham, NC, 2011), pp. 119–146.

²⁶ N. Pathak, Trends in Contemporary Assamese Theatre (Bloomington, IN, 2015), p. 42.

²⁷ S. Das, Jatra of Assam: Journey of People’s Theatre (Guwahati, 2020), p. 25.

²⁸ Ibid, p. 26.

²⁹ R. Patgiri, in Nirmali Devi Sarma, Rangamancha: Smritigrantha Assam Natya Sanmilan 56th Meet. (Mangaldai, 2018), p. 182.

³⁰ Today, mobile theatre plays are staged on twin-stages, which are makeshift stages carried from one location to another. Stage workers handle the assembly and disassembly of the stage materials, and a backstage team looks after the props used during the plays.

³¹ Up until then, female impersonators had enacted women’s roles in various performances in Assam, a common phenomenon noted in other parts of India too.

³² R. Patgiri, ‘Mobile theatre of Assam: a socio-historical perspective’, Journal of North East India Studies 9.1 (2019), pp. 29–51.

³³ M. N. Sarma, ‘Natya-Parampara: Mukoli Mancha’r pora Doordarshan Loi’ [Theatrical traditions: from open-air stage to Doordarshan], (Guwahati, 1993).

³⁴ Ibid, pp. 44–52.

³⁵ Ibid, p. 103.

³⁶ M. Deka, ‘Religion, gender and sexuality: the Devadasi system in Assam’, Sexuality & Culture 26 (2022), pp. 2192–2193.

³⁷ Ibid, p. 2192.

³⁸ M. N. Sarma, ‘Natya-Parampara’, p. 104.

³⁹ This auditorium is situated in Doodooma in the Tinsukia district of Assam. N. Pathak, ‘Dynamics of popular culture: Jatra in Assam’, in Cultural Forms and Practices in Northeast India, (ed.) K. C. Baral (Singapore, 2023), pp. 215–227.

⁴⁰ M. N. Sarma, ‘Natya-Parampara’, p. 104.

⁴¹ C. Choudhury, ‘Mur Natya Jibonor Tini Kuri Bosor’ [60 years of my theatre journey], Asamar Natya Itihasar Chakranabhi Natyasamrat Chandra Choudhury (Assam, 2017), p. 45. The author of this autobiography worked as a female impersonator and later took up management roles in theatre.

⁴² Jatra performances are prevalent in western Assam compared to eastern Assam, where traditional plays with religious and mythological themes called bhaona (introduced by neo-Vaishnavite saint Srimanta Sankardeva) are performed in community prayer halls (namghar) and monasteries (sattras). Srimanta Sankardeva (1449–1568) combined dance, drama, and music to enact his first play, Chihna Yatra. He also used paintings to depict the changing scenes.

⁴³ S. Sarma and S. Gogoi, ‘Humour and cinema: a study of language politics in Assam’, in Frontiers of South Asian Culture: Nation, Trans-Nation and Beyond, (eds.) P. Patra and A. Bhattacharya (New York, 2024), pp. 35–48.

⁴⁴ S. Greenblatt, ‘Cultural mobility: an introduction’, in Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, (ed.) S. Greenblatt (Cambridge, 2010), p. 251.

⁴⁵ A. K. Chaudhuri, ‘Rewriting women—revisiting women’s narratives in film: Adayja and Joymati’, Margins: A Journal of Literature and Culture 4 (2014), pp. 100–115.

⁴⁶ Ibid, p. 107.

⁴⁷ S. Pisharoty, ‘90 years of Joymoti: the film that paved the way for Assamese cinema’, The Wire (2025), https://thewire.in/film/90-years-of-joymoti-the-film-that-paved-the-way-for-assamese-cinema (accessed 15 November 2025).

⁴⁸ Ibid.

⁴⁹ Mahanta, Journey of Assamese Women, pp. 60–89.

⁵⁰ H. Medhi, Gendered Publics: Chandraprabha Saikiani and the Mahila Samitis in Colonial Assam (New Delhi, 2023), p. 237.

⁵¹ Ibid.

⁵² B. Sharma, The Moving Image and Assamese Culture: Joymoti, Jyotiprasad Agarwala, and Assamese Cinema (New Delhi, 2014), pp. 124–129. Aideu Handique passed away in 2002, but she is featured in Arup Manna’s documentary Aideu: Behind the Screen (2007), which was released posthumously; Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUWlHsp2lLY and Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6s1h-lggh8&t=2s (both accessed 11 February 2025).

⁵³ B. Prakash, ‘Archives are a SCAM!’, Contemporary Theatre Review 31 (2021), pp. 1–10.

⁵⁴ Ibid, p. 2.

⁵⁵ J. Agarwala (director), Joymoti [motion picture] (1935), India: Assamese, re-edited Altaf Mazid version, 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNez6fHMGVk (accessed 16 April 2025).

⁵⁶ J. P. Agarwalla, ‘Asomor Film Silpa Garhat Asomiya Darshakar Daitva’ [Responsibilities of the Assamese audience in the making of films in Assam], in Jyoti Prasad Racanavali, (ed.) H. Gohain (Guwahati, 2003), pp. 536–539.

⁵⁷ The traditional Assamese attire consists of a two-piece set where the mekhela is worn like a skirt and the sador is draped around the body.

⁵⁸ A. Ara, ‘Identity, indigeneity, and cultural props: portraying the Tai-Ahoms in two Assamese films based on the legend of Joymoti’, in Media, Indigeneity and Nation in South Asia, (eds.) M. Schleiter and E. de Maaker (London, 2020), pp. 229–245.

⁵⁹ A. Bhattacharya, Joymoti, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha0PjRQCP1Y (accessed 16 April 2025).

⁶⁰ A traditional wraparound skirt known as pha sin is worn with a blouse known as pha su. Below the pha su, the riha or the pha dai/lang bat is worn by married women, and above the blouse there is a garment known as pha mai. From the 1980s onwards, the Ahom identity movement started to assert its distinctive ethnic culture in Assam, as opposed to the caste-Hindu community. At present, the Ahom community is categorised as ‘Other Backward Class’ (OBC) and there is a demand for Scheduled Tribes status. For colonial constructions of ‘Ahom’ and ‘Assamese’, see, Y. Saikia, ‘Religion, nostalgia, and memory: making an ancient and recent Tai-Ahom identity in Assam and Thailand’, Journal of Asian Studies 65.1 (2006), pp. 33–60.

⁶¹ Interestingly, Phuleswari, or Phulmati, consort of Raja Siva Singha (r. 1714–1744) of the Ahom kingdom, who was a woman belonging to the Nat community, had ascended the throne before the arrival of the British colonial enterprise. It is said that, according to an astrologer’s prophecy, there was a bad omen indicating that the king would lose his throne. Siva Singha then abdicated the throne, and numismatic evidence reveals that the king struck coins in his name along with the name of his consort and made her the ‘Bar- Kuanri’ (Chief Queen) who assumed the name Pramateswari Devi, one of the names of Sakta goddess Durga to be the ‘Bar-raja’. See, P. R. Gurdon, ‘Review of An Assamese Nur Jahan by S. K. Bhuyan’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 59.3 (1927), pp. 611–615. For a comparative perspective on female performers’ upward social mobility by gaining political power in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s (r. 1801–1839) court in pre-colonial Punjab, see R. Kapuria, ‘Of music and the maharaja: gender, affect, and power in Ranjit Singh’s Lahore’, Modern Asian Studies 54.2 (2020), pp. 654–690. The article explores the ruler’s affective ties with two Muslim courtesans, namely Bibi Moran and Gul Begum, who also wielded political power.

⁶² S. Greenblatt, ‘Culture’, in Critical Terms for Literary Study, (eds.) F. Lentrichhia and T. McLaughlin (Chicago, 1995), pp. 225–232.

⁶³ This refers to the open ground where Joymoti was tied to a tree and punished.

⁶⁴ L. Bezbaruah, Joymoti Konwari (Dibrugarh, 1997), pp. 26–28.

⁶⁵ M. Baruah, ‘Constructing theatrical modernity in colonial Assam print, the early plays and notions of Asomiya cultural identity’, Fortell 36 (2018), pp. 90–96.

⁶⁶ Ibid, p. 94.

⁶⁷ D. Kikon, ‘Difficult loves: purity and hardship’, in Northeast India: A Place of Relations, (eds.) Y. Saikia and A. R. Baishya (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 225–243.

⁶⁸ Ibid, p. 235.

⁶⁹ This again reinforces the image of the sacrificial Sati. G. Rajkhowa, ‘Coming back to life: Jyotiprasad’s Joymoti and nationalist politics in Assam, 1890s to 1940s’, BioScope 6.2 (2015), pp. 107–125.

⁷⁰ D. Bora, ‘Between popular and populist: reading the shift of mobile theatre repertoire’, South Asian Popular Culture 20.2 (2022), pp. 261–275.

⁷¹ Of the nearly 30 mobile theatre groups, three are headed by second-generation male producers; and in another group, the current male producer is assisted by his son, who will succeed him in the future. Today, only one mobile theatre group is headed by a female producer-cum-lead actor.

⁷² Sometimes there are auditions for new actors, but experienced actors are directly contacted by management teams based on the plays they plan to stage in the upcoming theatre season. Ongoing productions serve as a platform for actors to showcase their work.

⁷³ The Mising people are an indigenous tribal community of Assam.

⁷⁴ Bora, ‘Between popular and populist’, pp. 261–275.

⁷⁵ M. Aguair, C. Mathieson, and L. Pearce, ‘Introduction: mobilities, literature, culture’, in Mobilities, Literature, Culture, (eds.) M. Aguair, C. Mathieson, and L. Pearce (Cham, 2019), pp. 1–31.

⁷⁶ T. Cresswell and T. P. Uteng, ‘Gendered mobilities: towards an holistic understanding’, in Gendered Mobilities, (eds.) T. P. Uteng and T. Cresswell (London, 2008), pp. 1–12.