The word “dastan” like “kahani” means tale or story – only a dastan is what you would get if you took a kahani, stretched it, wrapped it around itself, added a few dozen characters, stewed it in magic and soaked in overnight in a steaming cauldron of the beauty that is Urdu and then served it up on a platter decorated by the skilled dastango’s voice. For the magic of the magic of the dastan and it’s telling lies in the physical act of recitation: in the inflections of the performer’s voice, his choice of words, the whisper that creeps into his voice when he describes palace intrigue or the shrill pitch of his giggle when he takes on a princess in a playful tease.
The tradition of Dastangoi is a centuries’ old practice of oral story-telling. As I understand it, the artform was popular under the patronage of Mughal emperors and at least Akbar is known to have practiced it himself. The practice became especially popular in the 19th century when dastans began to be composed in Urdu up until which point they had been composed in Persian. Many of the dastans that survive today come from the Dastan of Hamza and they are still with us not in the least due to their immense epic-scale popularity as printed stories from the 19th century. Of course there are as many different styles of Dastangoi as there are dastangos and each practitioner brings his own special flavour to a performance.
In July this year I was fortunate enough (and free enough) to attend many of Motley theatre company’s performances at their fortnight-long festival at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai. The company has made itself a unique niche with its performances that work with the idea of “storytelling on the stage” and among the many of their thought-provoking productions, my favourite was their Dastangoi narration. The performance I witnessed was derived from a volume of the Dastan of Hamza. Written by veteran dastango Mahmood Farooqui, joined by Murtaza Danish Husain and the inimitable Naseeruddin Shah, it is one of many dastangois that are seeing a revival across India and indeed, the world.
A still from the performance at the Motley festival. Image from the blog http://dastangoi.blogspot.com/
The artform saw a rapid decline in the 20th century as did the language of the dastans themselves. The performances that we see today however, are thanks largely to the efforts of dedicated dastangos like Mahmood Farooqui and his team. If you’re interested in knowing more and in being a part of a dastangoi yourself, I highly recommend their blog which you will find here.
Of course there are other performers discovering the magic of this form as well. In June I was at Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai for a Ekjute company’s production called ‘Hum Kahen Aap Sune’. Directed by Nadiraji Babbar the performance was supposed to be a re-contextualised adaptation the dastangoi tradition. Since it is a relatively new production, you may still get a chance to see it in Mumbai or when Ekjute goes on tour. Catch either of these performances around Mumbai or Delhi later this year or early in the next.
References:
http://dastangoi.blogspot.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamza_ibn_%E2%80%98Abd_al-Muttalib
and publicity material handed out during each of the above mentioned performances
