Dastangoi is the art of Urdu storytelling in which a dastan, or story, is recited or read aloud. The tradition, with its roots in Persia, originated in India in the 16th century. The critically acclaimed dastango, Mahmood Farooqui has been working on reviving the art of Dastangoi since 2004. He has built a team of 20 dastangos over the years. Rajesh Kumar and Rana Pratap Senger are two young dastangos from Farooqui's team, who began their tryst with the art form in 2009. Both Rajesh and Rana had many years of theatre experience before they turned into dastangos. Rajesh had been an active in the Delhi theatre circuit whereas Rana had learned the ropes while working with the late Habib Tanvir's theatre group, Naya Theatre. The two artistes share with us some of the thrills of being a dastango.
Aditi Sharma
When did you first learn about Dastangoi?
Rana Pratap Senger (RPS): I first met Farooqui during the filming of 'Peepli Live'. Anusha Rizvi had written the film and was co-directing it with Farooqui. I was helping the cast members with their diction. Later, Rajesh and I were amongst the many enthusiastic participants who signed up for Farooqui's workshop.
What were your first reactions like?
RPS: We very quickly realized that this was unlike any theatre experience we had ever had....
Rajesh Kumar (RK): Yes...there are no props, no entries or exits, we can't even move around on stage. It's only the words and gestures that keep the audience engaged for an hour. We immersed ourselves into learning the text, however difficult it seemed.
RPS: Rajesh and I stayed quite far away from each other so we would meet in a garden midway to learn our lines and rehearse. Ped-patton ko dastan sunaya karte the (We would narrate the stories to the trees and the leaves).
RK: I did not even make it for the entire workshop. Himanshu Tyagi, who used to partner with Farooqui earlier, insisted that I take up Dastangoi seriously. I took it up as a challenge.
How many of you have survived from the original group?
RPS: From the group that attended the workshop, only a handful of us have remained faithful to Dastangoi. Rajesh usually pairs up with Rasika Duggal, while I partner with Sheikh Usman but lately we have grown confident enough to perform with anyone whom we are paired with.
What were the challenges you faced?
RK: I was most scared about remembering the text and more so the sequence of the events that we have to narrate. This is not like a regular play. If you forget anything you can't improvise. Dastangoi has no modern theatrical devices to fall back on. There are jaadugars (magicians) and ayyars (tricksters) - aap kahan se improvise karoge? (how can we improvise?)
(The biggest challenge of Dastangoi are the stories. On his blog, Mahmood Farooqui quotes a note by Abdul Halim Sharar, the first historian of Lucknow. In the mid-nineteenth century, Sharar wrote that Dastangoi 'rested on descriptions of four phenomena, war, romance, trickery and magical artifices.')
RPS: Over the past two years, our Urdu has improved considerably, but language continues to be another big challenge that we face. Moreover, with rising interest in technological forms of entertainment, the art of storytelling has diminished. Na yeh zabaan chal rahi hai aur na sunnewale hain. Aajkal log dekhte zyada hain aur sunte kam hain. (Neither does this language work, nor there are listeners. These days, people see more and hear less).
RK: But we have managed to garner compliments on our command over the language from audiences in Lucknow and Hyderabad, where the audience has a keen ear for Urdu. Even in Karnataka, the audience was positive despite the language constraint.
RPS: Yes...actress Meeta Vashisht even asked us if Urdu is our first language.
RK: The trick is that if we find even one man in the audience who understands what we're saying, we catch hold of him. Looking at him, the rest of the audience also puts in the effort to understand. They think that if one guy can laugh along, why can't they? But with Mahmood's contemporary dastans - one on Binayak Sen and the other on the India-Pakistan Partition - the audience find it easier to connect to the performance.
So, where do you go from here?
RK: Mahmood and Danish (Husain) have been performing Dastangoi for so many years that they play around with the text, move from one story to another and back without losing the tempo. For us to reach that level will take a while but we're working towards it. Mahmood and Danish are my idols.
RPS: Traditionally, dastans are make-believe, so Dastangoi tests your ability to come up with stories spontaneously and for that you need to know the language really well. For instance, if the characters are in a jungle, then the jungle can be described for more than half an hour or if they're in a bazaar then it can be described down to every minute detail.
RK: We're not confident enough to play with the text on that level...
RPS: Sometimes when I take a pause, you know, for effect, my partner thinks that I've forgotten my line and rushes to my rescue to 'save the performance'! But we have undoubtedly improved. Zabaan bhi saaf hui hai (Our language is more pristine now). Now we're part of something that's not done anywhere else in the world. I'm proud of the fact that I am part of the revival and development of a tradition.
RK: I struggled for almost seven years to get some work but I wasn't getting any acting assignments. I took up Dastangoi as a challenge that had to be completed and I knew I'd get a good result. Dastangoi has given me a purpose to believe in.
What would you do if you didn't have a care in the world and could just concentrate on being dastangos?
RPS: If I was as rich as the Ambanis for instance, I would only perform dastans all my life. I would perform everyday. May be I would perform every word that has been written on those 46,000 pages.
RK: Firstly, I want to perform the piece featuring Aazar Jaadugar. I had rehearsed it thoroughly for my audition but I have never got to perform it on stage! Then, as a dastango I should be able to hold the audience for 2-4 hours and people should come up with requests for the stories they'd like me to narrate.
*Aditi Sharma enjoys watching theatre and writing about it.
