20 years of Delhi’s Dastangoi Collective so it has to be a Dastan-ival!
Once upon a time, the storyteller had to be a man of many arts—be glib and a deft swordsman, at the very least. Close to the centre of power in an imperial court, his dastan night could be followed by him having to take the lead in diplomacy with the emperor’s enemies the day after, and being a soldier too, if such talks failed. Darbar Khan, for instance, employed at Akbar’s court, was one such storyteller. He made his way through life with words, one man for himself.
But in Delhi, over the past 20 years, we have come to expect the dastangos in twos — two men or two women talking poetry in the idiom of everyday life, staged as theatre. This art form was popularised by actor-writer-director Mahmood Farooqui, and the late doyen of Urdu literature Shamsur Rahman Faruqui, beginning with a performance at the IIC in 2005.
The performances of Farooqui and his 20-member team — the Dastangoi Collective includes seven women dastangos — have always been delightful. Some of its stories are familiar but the performance is always fresh. They seem pulled out from a place of adventure, knowledge and courage. Each time the lights have dimmed in an auditorium, except on the two players on a gadda, the two dastangos have been pretty much the lone centre, voicing and embodying heroes or holy cows; myths; history, recent, past or troubled; before an audience in the dark, hoping the story lands well.
Rajasthani folklorist Vijay Dan Detha’s stories have been repeatedly performed, as has been a dastan on writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Excerpts from a conversation with Farooqui ahead of the staging of four celebrated dastans—Dastan Alice Ki, Dastan-e-Manto, Dastan-e-Raj Kapoor and Dastan-e-Raag Darbari—at Mandi House, July 18-20, 7 pm onwards.
It is said you have conceived the modern format of the dastangoi art form, what does that mean in terms of content and presentation?
When I revived the form under the guidance of the great late Shamsur Rahman Faruqi none of us had ever seen a dastangoi performance. My innovation was, I thought, of having two people perform together. With Anusha's help [partner, writer and Peepli Live director Anusha Rizvi] and with my intuitive theatre training, we devised the modern form and presentation style as a combination of the traditional and the modern. We had a takht, katoras to drink from, Anusha devised the costumes, I insisted on a certain style of pajamas and topis. We used lights, sound, stage decorum, which made this much closer to a modern stage show, and thereby modern dastangoi was born as something that was akin to theatre, but also much more than that.
Why did you think dastangoi would work in Delhi--there was already theatre present in various forms 20 years ago? Which story did you start with?
When I read the traditional stories of Dastan-e-Amir hamza, I was flabbergasted at their plot turns, use of language, poetry and their uninhibited, unfettered imagination. They were the most outstanding thing I had ever come across in Indian literature and performance. So, I knew they would work. The first show was at the IIC in Delhi on May 4, 2005.
Why has the story of the tilism (magical world) of Hoshruba become one of the foremost fantasy tales of Urdu and can one understand it if one doesn't know Urdu?
Yes, Tilism-e-Hoshruba, the most famous chapter of the traditional Dastan-e-Amir Hamza [supposedly an uncle of the Prophet Mohammed], which is itself in eight volumes or over 8,000 pages, is in many ways the crowning glory not just of Urdu but also Indian literature and performance. It is full of wit, playfulness, literary flourishes, inventiveness and fantasy, and has several different rasas in it, as exhorted by the Natyashastra. It speaks wonderfully to non-Urdu speakers, too.
In the Partition dastan, you liberally take material from Krishan Chander, Rahi Masoom Raza, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Amrita Pritam, Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali’s Zamindar, Intizar Hussain, et al. Is dastangoi copyright-agnostic, or is this part of the dastan tradition?
There is no stealing in paying homage. We draw upon poetry but not stories, we allude to those great works and adapt them and synergise them to our narration. All the readings I have done in my life, all the history I have studied at Delhi, Oxford, Cambridge, gets poured into the Dastan's research to re-direct the material and deploy it to new uses.
Vazira's Zamindar book, for instance, has not sold as many copies as the number of people it may have reached via our Dastans. Dastangoi takes knowledge out of books, libraries and universities and puts it into the popular realm.
In these 20 years, which dastan performance has been your most difficult, or that’s given the audience most pleasure?
Dastan-e-Karan from the Mahabharata. I put my life into it every time I do it. It has also earned a great response, and why not, it is after all the Mahabharata.
Does Raj Kapoor need a dastan? To play the devil’s advocate, why did you not think of a Dastan on Guru Dutt or Ritwik Ghatak?
As it happens, I am currently working on a Dastan on Guru Dutt. It’s a melodramatic epic and a tragedy, which speaks of the many comedies of life!
Raj Kapoor's life is epic, he was a showman, but more than him, his father Prithvi Raj Kapoor’s story is highly important because he put his life and soul into doing theatre. He was doing plays on harmony, unity and love at the time of Partition—plays like Deewar and Pathan touring all over India during those turbulent days. Raj Kapoor’s story is also about Indian independence, about the studio system, about great lyricists like Shailendra, it is a story we need to tell; it’s about India belonging to all. It is the retelling of the great Indian dream.