Mumbai, Mirror & Mahmood

MUMBAI, Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Mahmood Farooqui (right) and Danish Husain perform the dastangoi Telling Tales Mahmood Farooqui gives Pragya Tewari a lesson in the creation and performance of the dastangoi, a form that resurrects the medieval art of telling fantastic stories Mahmood Farooqui How did the idea of the performance come about? I was familiar with dastans but had never really studied them. My uncle, S.R. Farooqui, has written a comprehensive book on the subject which I happened to read, and found myself hooked to the humour, the drama and the economy of expression. A fellowship with the organisation Sarai followed and I began toying with the idea of making a film on dastans. Last year in May, I got an offer from the India International Centre (IIC) in Delhi to present lecture demonstrations on dastans and realised the best way to present them would be through a performance. Were you sceptical about audience response to the show? I was apprehensive that a non-Urdu speaking audience would not follow the dastans. Besides, it seemed like a challenge to be able to hold the attention of the audience without much dramatic action on stage. However, their reaction surpassed my expectations and I found myself performing to a near ideal audience at IIC. That made me realise this could stand as a show. Subsequently I began to receive similar responses from non-Urdu speaking audiences and even foreigners completely unfamiliar with the language. If you are making them laugh, you most certainly have them hooked. That made me realise that beyond the content, the style of recitation and the form itself were attractive and I found the courage to devise ways to convert even a less than ideal audience to an ideal one. The acting/recitation skills you have used are closer to modern acting styles; is this what makes it more accessible to the audience? Yes. We are two storytellers on stage, though there used to be just one originally. Our delivery is more modern, but I have tried to imbibe the essence of the original art. Even though I haven't heard Mir Baqar myself, I had help from my uncle S.R. Farooqi who has researched dastangoi. In Dehradun we performed in front of Habib Tanvir who gave us some valuable inputs. He has been working with traditional forms for years. I have been trying to strike the right balance between dramatisation and recitation. Our form has been constantly evolving and will continue to do so. Do you see dastangoi as a related but separate performance art form or is it essentially theatre for you? For me, this is most definitely theatre. I am using my body and voice to reach out to a live audience. We need to broaden our definition of theatre. The modern definition built around the proscenium and western sensibilities does not pertain to our context. It leaves a lot of traditional Indian forms out. For instance, it is common practice for Ghazal singers to address the audience directly during their performances asking them to pay heed to a particular couplet. That, according to me, is theatrical. Are your performances a one-off attempt to acquaint people with a lost legacy or do you want to revive this art? I am interested in reviving dastangoi. But I am aware that a stand-alone performance is not enough. A revival would only be underway if more people started performing these stories. Not necessarily in the form I am using, but others could dramatise the dastans or add music to the recitations. The stories can also be contemporised or given a political nuance. For instance, Amar Aiyyar, the hero of our story, could land in Tilism-e-America or Iraq. Even if these performances can generate interest enough for people to buy and read the stories, a sort of revival could be effected. I consider myself contributing more significantly to this revival when I find myself improvising the stories and adding to them in my performances. Traditionally, dastangoi has been entertainment for the masses. Do you think they would be as receptive to your performances as the theatre-going audiences have been? These stories have influenced the earliest writers of Hindi cinema. The masses are therefore familiar with the plots and characters of these dastans. Besides the people of this country are still semi-illiterate which means there is a lot of scope for the oral tradition of stories to flourish. Why is this revival important? These stories were written when self-hatred had not set into our society. They are devoid of colonial influence and marked by unfettered imagination. Fantasies are political because they open up an alternative worlds and possibilities without hammering any point home. These stories are a hallmark of Indian literature. They provide with valuable insights into the history of our languages and writing. It is important for us to discover such independent realms where language can be refashioned and reclaimed from pundits and maulvis. Do you see these stories as unadulterated, non-politicised lessons in history as well? They present a joyous, hedonistic and secular picture of a society with no taboos. There are humorous descriptions of god and saints and references to ‘Islami Sharaab’. These stories were recited on the steps of Jama Masjid, among other places, without any censorship. They reek of a republican spirit and demonstrate the possibilities of critique inherent in our tradition. The next Dastangoi performance will be held at Prithvi Theatre on July 1 and 2, at 9 pm

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