Alternatively profound and bawdy, the ancient art of Dastangoi is all about weaving a tapestry of magic realism with words
In an another era, Mahmood Farooqui (a Delhi-based historian, writer and performer) and Danish Husain (an actor and an poet) would have probably held court at the steps of Delhi's Jama Masjid, but today they find kadardaans (patrons) in the granite-laden hall of the Park Hotel (as a part of The Parks' new festival).
However, this very fact hardly seemed to deter these two modern-day dastangos. On a rainy September evening, surrounded by cascades of jasmine, Husain and Farooqui took a roomful of Kolkatans to a faraway world of scheming sorcerers and gullible fairies where dragon armies are slayed with a help of little treacheries and battles are won with the help of conniving seductresses, and all they had to their aid were words.
The ancient art of dastangoi was popular in India since the eleventh century. It's believed that these narrations of the exploits of Amir Hamza, the Islamic warrior, was liked by emperor Akbar too. With its transmission into Urdu, dastangoi gained mass appeal. It was, indeed, an art-form meant fo the general audience. something which they can relate to. As Husain and Farooqui enthralled the audience with an animated narration, it was not difficult to identify origins of the Parsi theatre tradition (which in turn influenced what we know as masala Hindi films).
Full report here Indian Express
Showing posts with label Mahmood Farooqui. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mahmood Farooqui. Show all posts
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Breathing life into words
There is a Jewish saying — God made man because he loves stories. And man has been telling stories from time immemorial. There are no cultures or societies without stories — tales of love, tragedies, escapades and heroic deeds.
“Dastangoi, the art of storytelling is a compound of two Persian words ‘dastan’ and ‘goi’, which means to tell a dastan (story). Dastans were epics, often oral in nature, which were recited or read aloud,” says Mahmood Farooqui, the man who’s been responsible for reviving this lost art, which can be traced back to the 16th century.
Full report here Bangalore Mirror
Full report here Bangalore Mirror
Advance, not retreat
The building up of tension in anticipation of the verdict of the Allahabad High Court on four title suits claiming ownership over the disputed Babri Masjid/Ram Janmabhoomi site at Ayodhya on September 24 is palpable. In this context, one cannot escape recollecting that on this day — September
14, 1857 – the British launched their final assault on Delhi, completely routing “the most magnificent city east of Constantinople”. Thus began the notorious divide-and-rule policy that the British adopted to consolidate their colonial occupation and loot of India. A contemporary British chronicler in central India, Thomas Lowe, during the first war of independence wrote in 1860: “To live in India now was like standing on the verge of a volcanic crater, the sides of which were fast crumbling away from our feet, while the boiling lava was ready to erupt and consume us”.
Further, he exclaimed: “The infanticide Rajput, the bigoted Brahmin, the fanatic Mussalman, had joined together in the cause; cow-killer and the cow-worshipper, the pig-hater and the pig-eater…” had revolted together.
Clearly, such unity as displayed by Indians during 1857-59 against the British could not be allowed if the British were to continue to rule India. The divide-and-rule policy officially began and was later cemented with the partition of the Hindu and the Muslim electorates in undivided Bengal in 1905. The popular resistance to this — the swadeshi movement — laid the foundations for the emergence of the modern freedom struggle.
In a groundbreaking work, Besieged, Mahmood Farooqui provides a rich translation of the archival ‘Mutiny Papers’ for the first time. One can see here that in every statement/deposition made by every resident of Delhi to the authorities against the entry Qaun, we find descriptions such as Ahir, Gujjar, Rajput, Kori, Khatri, Shaikh, Pathan, Dafali etc. Nowhere has a categorisation been made on the basis of religion. In fact, the widely circulated daily, Dihli Urdu Akhbaar, reported that the 1857 rebellion “had been sent by the Gods to punish the kafirs (read British) for their arrogant plan to wipe out the religions of India”. Note the reference is not any particular religion but to all religions of this land.
Full report here Hindustan Times
14, 1857 – the British launched their final assault on Delhi, completely routing “the most magnificent city east of Constantinople”. Thus began the notorious divide-and-rule policy that the British adopted to consolidate their colonial occupation and loot of India. A contemporary British chronicler in central India, Thomas Lowe, during the first war of independence wrote in 1860: “To live in India now was like standing on the verge of a volcanic crater, the sides of which were fast crumbling away from our feet, while the boiling lava was ready to erupt and consume us”.
Further, he exclaimed: “The infanticide Rajput, the bigoted Brahmin, the fanatic Mussalman, had joined together in the cause; cow-killer and the cow-worshipper, the pig-hater and the pig-eater…” had revolted together.
Clearly, such unity as displayed by Indians during 1857-59 against the British could not be allowed if the British were to continue to rule India. The divide-and-rule policy officially began and was later cemented with the partition of the Hindu and the Muslim electorates in undivided Bengal in 1905. The popular resistance to this — the swadeshi movement — laid the foundations for the emergence of the modern freedom struggle.
In a groundbreaking work, Besieged, Mahmood Farooqui provides a rich translation of the archival ‘Mutiny Papers’ for the first time. One can see here that in every statement/deposition made by every resident of Delhi to the authorities against the entry Qaun, we find descriptions such as Ahir, Gujjar, Rajput, Kori, Khatri, Shaikh, Pathan, Dafali etc. Nowhere has a categorisation been made on the basis of religion. In fact, the widely circulated daily, Dihli Urdu Akhbaar, reported that the 1857 rebellion “had been sent by the Gods to punish the kafirs (read British) for their arrogant plan to wipe out the religions of India”. Note the reference is not any particular religion but to all religions of this land.
Full report here Hindustan Times
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
1857 and the sighs & groans of Delhi
The Uprising of 1857 has triggered strong sentiments and spawned lively debates. It has been a subject of scholarly concerns and impassioned invocations, a site of spectacular clash of snarling half-truths and eager political appropriation. If, in the aftermath of the Uprising, the field was almost exclusively occupied by the victorious British, the nationalists grabbed it later with no less alacrity and passion, and this resulted in yet another historiographical divide.
There have, however, been sophisticated departures from the established divide in the overall or specific contexts of the event, but Mahmood Farooqui's book on Delhi in 1857 is at once brilliant and unique in that it gives us a poignant immediacy and feel of one of the sites of the Uprising. The reader is parachuted, as it were, into the besieged city to experience the trauma the people went through in those tumultuous days.
ASPECTS
The book presents, for the first time, an English translation of the Mutiny Papers on the siege of Delhi in 1857, originally written in Persian and in Shikastah (cursive) Urdu. They represent three aspects of the Uprising: the way it affected the common people; the manner in which the Uprising was organised and managed in the besieged city; and the way Maulvi Baqar, editor of Dehli Urdu Akhbar perceived the events. The documents unfold the overlapping nodes of authority under siege: the Court, the Commander-in-Chief, the Court of Mutineers, and the police that were constantly struggling to maintain order in the face of refractory loyalties of the mutinied soldiers and their intrusive and plundering instincts and habits, and grappling with shortages of food, money, paper, and gun powder, not to speak of the eroding morale and increasing desertions.
Full review here Hindu
ASPECTS
The book presents, for the first time, an English translation of the Mutiny Papers on the siege of Delhi in 1857, originally written in Persian and in Shikastah (cursive) Urdu. They represent three aspects of the Uprising: the way it affected the common people; the manner in which the Uprising was organised and managed in the besieged city; and the way Maulvi Baqar, editor of Dehli Urdu Akhbar perceived the events. The documents unfold the overlapping nodes of authority under siege: the Court, the Commander-in-Chief, the Court of Mutineers, and the police that were constantly struggling to maintain order in the face of refractory loyalties of the mutinied soldiers and their intrusive and plundering instincts and habits, and grappling with shortages of food, money, paper, and gun powder, not to speak of the eroding morale and increasing desertions.
Full review here Hindu
Saying the unsaid
Mahmood Farooqui turns a new leaf with his book on the lesser known aspects of the First War of Independence
The documents were “too rich” and “fascinating” and the “untold stories” of 1857 deserved a hearing. So, Mahmood Farooqui embarked on a journey that was to take the wonderful form of a book. The effort is indeed groundbreaking, because it brings to life the Mutiny Papers that have documented the siege of Delhi.
“I wanted to bring out, more than anything, what Delhi was and what it went through. Delhi had gone through many upheavals, but 1857, the brutality with which it was suppressed, was something that we have not been fully mindful of,” says the chronicler of “Besieged, Voices From Delhi, 1857” (Penguin).
Giving it (the documents) a shape was a huge challenge. Farooqui had to transcribe and translate the papers from Urdu to English. “They were too fragile and I couldn't have photocopied them all. They were in thousands. The material had to be beaten into some kind of a narrative, a coherent shape.”
Full report here Hindu
“I wanted to bring out, more than anything, what Delhi was and what it went through. Delhi had gone through many upheavals, but 1857, the brutality with which it was suppressed, was something that we have not been fully mindful of,” says the chronicler of “Besieged, Voices From Delhi, 1857” (Penguin).
Giving it (the documents) a shape was a huge challenge. Farooqui had to transcribe and translate the papers from Urdu to English. “They were too fragile and I couldn't have photocopied them all. They were in thousands. The material had to be beaten into some kind of a narrative, a coherent shape.”
Full report here Hindu
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Chronicler of a tale foretold
The most original storyteller of the Indian side of the 1857 revolt says the idea of history has been forced by the elite on the masses
As the most original chronicler of the Mutiny of 1857 makes the passage from Jamia Milia University to the Saket Mall, he peers out at the current ghadar on the streets. “This city has never stopped being under construction,” he says, “for centuries.”
The tamasha over the Commonwealth Games, the unpreparedness of Delhi and the prevalent corruption are familiar to Mahmood Farooqui: his Besieged: Voices From Delhi 1857 chronicles a similar, if far more historical, upheaval. Unlike conventional histories of the Mutiny, Farooqui’s compilation collects the voices of Vaziran, one of the city’s more influential courtesans, documents the arrests of lunatics (and the rounding up of Bengalis), records a soldiers’ court arraigning corrupt officials and other fascinating minutiae. It is, in its own way, a subaltern history; which is why Farooqui is perversely delighted to be lunching at Brown Sahib, the Anglo-Indian and Bengali cuisine restaurant in Saket’s MGF mall, writes Nilanjana S Roy.
His new BlackBerry rings every three minutes or so. Within weeks of the launch of Besieged, Farooqui’s wife, Anusha Rizvi, hit the headlines because of her excellent debut as director on the Amir Khan-backed film, Peepli Live. Farooqui, co-director of the film, used to either the quiet life of the historian in the library, or the civilised acclaim that greets his dastangoi performances, is handling Bollywood-ishtyle stardom for the first time, and it’s left him a little dazed. “Anusha appeared on Indian Idol so she’s spotted now, recognised,” he says. “But it has its good side. Our paan-wallah has given us extra credit for this month.”
Full report here Business Standard
As the most original chronicler of the Mutiny of 1857 makes the passage from Jamia Milia University to the Saket Mall, he peers out at the current ghadar on the streets. “This city has never stopped being under construction,” he says, “for centuries.”
The tamasha over the Commonwealth Games, the unpreparedness of Delhi and the prevalent corruption are familiar to Mahmood Farooqui: his Besieged: Voices From Delhi 1857 chronicles a similar, if far more historical, upheaval. Unlike conventional histories of the Mutiny, Farooqui’s compilation collects the voices of Vaziran, one of the city’s more influential courtesans, documents the arrests of lunatics (and the rounding up of Bengalis), records a soldiers’ court arraigning corrupt officials and other fascinating minutiae. It is, in its own way, a subaltern history; which is why Farooqui is perversely delighted to be lunching at Brown Sahib, the Anglo-Indian and Bengali cuisine restaurant in Saket’s MGF mall, writes Nilanjana S Roy.
His new BlackBerry rings every three minutes or so. Within weeks of the launch of Besieged, Farooqui’s wife, Anusha Rizvi, hit the headlines because of her excellent debut as director on the Amir Khan-backed film, Peepli Live. Farooqui, co-director of the film, used to either the quiet life of the historian in the library, or the civilised acclaim that greets his dastangoi performances, is handling Bollywood-ishtyle stardom for the first time, and it’s left him a little dazed. “Anusha appeared on Indian Idol so she’s spotted now, recognised,” he says. “But it has its good side. Our paan-wallah has given us extra credit for this month.”
Full report here Business Standard
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Ears on cobblestones
Two books offer no insight into the enigma of 1857, but, laudably, listen in on marginalised voices and oral lores
India was ‘in peace without and within’, and there appeared to be ‘no quarter from which formidable war could reasonably be expected at present’. This was Dalhousie’s message of comfort to his successor, Canning, in February 1856. The Anglo-Indian press, adopting the same tone, declared India to be profoundly tranquil. But within a year, a complacent British administration had to deal with the first overwhelming tide of disaster.
The cry from the Juma Masjid went out: Allah-o-Akbar! Allah-o-Akbar. The tired voice said it all. It was the sixteenth day of fasting in the month of Ramzan. The qawwal’s loud, melodious voice detailed the ascension of the Prophet through the heavens. This story offered poets an opening to depict the Prophet in all his glory, flying through the heavens on his mount Buraq.
It was May 11, 1857. The clock struck eight. Some spotted soldiers in their French-grey jackets and light dragoon shakos. A party of mounted horsemen, soiled with dust and blood, were soon to appear beneath the walls of the Red Fort. Galloping down the Meerut Road, they headed towards the pontoon bridge spanning the Yamuna near the wall of the Salimgarh Fort. Soon they entered the city. Delhi turned hellish (Sarzamin-i Dilli hashr ka maidan bani hui thi), wrote Zakaullah, a teacher at Delhi College.
Full review here Outlook
 |
| Besieged: Voices from Delhi 1857 Ed by Mahmood Farooqui Viking; Rs 699; Pp 320 |
The cry from the Juma Masjid went out: Allah-o-Akbar! Allah-o-Akbar. The tired voice said it all. It was the sixteenth day of fasting in the month of Ramzan. The qawwal’s loud, melodious voice detailed the ascension of the Prophet through the heavens. This story offered poets an opening to depict the Prophet in all his glory, flying through the heavens on his mount Buraq.
It was May 11, 1857. The clock struck eight. Some spotted soldiers in their French-grey jackets and light dragoon shakos. A party of mounted horsemen, soiled with dust and blood, were soon to appear beneath the walls of the Red Fort. Galloping down the Meerut Road, they headed towards the pontoon bridge spanning the Yamuna near the wall of the Salimgarh Fort. Soon they entered the city. Delhi turned hellish (Sarzamin-i Dilli hashr ka maidan bani hui thi), wrote Zakaullah, a teacher at Delhi College.
Full review here Outlook
The untold Delhi
In the freshly released Besieged: Voices from Delhi, he gives us a series of selections from different sources that not only put the 1857 “mutiny”/ “war of independence” in context but also give greater voice to Indians than has often been the case in the past
Mahmood Farooqui is known as a theatre personality and a scholar whose translations have enabled William Dalrymple’s popular and excellent history books. In the freshly released Besieged: Voices from Delhi, he gives us a series of selections from different sources that not only put the 1857 “mutiny”/ “war of independence” in context but also give greater voice to Indians than has often been the case in the past.
Memories, and accounts, of 1857 vary: There were accounts of atrocities and heroism on and by both sides. However, by and large, the dominant (British-inspired) perspective is that of a doomed uprising of “sepoys”, reluctantly led by an aged Mughal emperor who was a prisoner in his own palace. There are some elements of truth in this version. But the accounts in Farooqui’s book reveal a greater complexity: For instance, it becomes evident that an extraordinary effort was launched by Bahadur Shah Zafar to fight the British. Thousands of labourers and tonnes of materials were mobilized, funds were gathered, the police monitored food prices and a functioning bureaucracy was vigilantly maintained—right until the city’s fall. There were prescient attempts to prevent Hindu-Muslim conflict (which was being anticipated by the British) by banning the slaughter of cows, etc.
Full report here Mint
Memories, and accounts, of 1857 vary: There were accounts of atrocities and heroism on and by both sides. However, by and large, the dominant (British-inspired) perspective is that of a doomed uprising of “sepoys”, reluctantly led by an aged Mughal emperor who was a prisoner in his own palace. There are some elements of truth in this version. But the accounts in Farooqui’s book reveal a greater complexity: For instance, it becomes evident that an extraordinary effort was launched by Bahadur Shah Zafar to fight the British. Thousands of labourers and tonnes of materials were mobilized, funds were gathered, the police monitored food prices and a functioning bureaucracy was vigilantly maintained—right until the city’s fall. There were prescient attempts to prevent Hindu-Muslim conflict (which was being anticipated by the British) by banning the slaughter of cows, etc.
Full report here Mint
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)