The early Dastangois told tales of magic, war and adventure, and
borrowed freely from other stories such as the Arabian Nights,
storytellers such as Rumi, and storytelling traditions such as
the Panchatantra., what exactly is the art of Dastangoi?
Performing on a story! Sometimes dramatically performing the stories
and sometimes also creating while performing.
This beautiful art had almost died down by early twentieth
century. Thanks to some brave and talented researchers and
skilled young storytellers like you…the art form has come back to
life? Would you like to talk more about you and your
contemporaries?
Maybe we can start with the modern revival of this art, which one can
say happened in 2005. We should give credit to Mr. Mohammad
Farooqui. I joined him in 2006, and slowly, performing became the
revival. It’s not technically revival; it’s not exactly the revival. We
reinvented and created some stir.
You have been at the forefront of the revival of this art-form. Since
2016, he has; however, you are also focusing on a new form –
Qissebaazi …..
2016! This year, the concept of Qissebazi came into existence. I had
this grand vision and it somewhat bothered performing Dastangoi only
on stories written in Urdu. The act and the art suffer with restrictions.
Why not bring in all languages, cultures, methods into it and make it a
bigger umbrella?
Bandish is a play about the conflict between the traditional and the
modern…what all you see in a story, play, and film as story?
The literary, aesthetically-rich content, beautiful theme, the words with
a heavy emphasis on the meaningful message of the story are
important. But what is most important that it should be accessible to
my audience.
78 SOCULTURES JAN-FEB2019