India, June 29 -- The world first met Umrao Jan (spelt Jaan sometimes) Ada eavesdropping on an intimate gathering of poets. Enraptured by a particularly well-crafted couplet, she praises it and reveals herself to the group. Instantly, they invite her to join them, which she gracefully does. Umrao Jan, though not the first strongly etched female character in the late 19th century - Urdu literature at the time was influenced by reformist zeal that made a case for women to come out of the purdah and receive an education - was certainly unlike any other tawaif (courtesan) that the reader would have come across. The eponymously titled novel that came out in 1899, a little more than four decades into colonial rule under the British crown, told ...