[Reader-list] responses to DASTANGOI PERFORMANCE-IIC 4TH MAY

[Punam Zutshi]

Thanks Mahmood and Anand Vivek for the illuminating exchange.

I kept thinking about special effects and  the "cinematic" style of films
about magic and religion, as I watched the performance.

But what's this about "an imperialist, hegemonic reaction" , Mahmood? Being
susceptible to the beauty of Urdu qualifies as such ?? Do clarify.

Prof S.R. Faruqui mentioned tales in Bosnia ( was it?)  that seemed to
recount  histories of wars.The Dastans you drew upon were both very oral and
very writerly, and fantastical.Of course there are the 46 volumes found in
no one library to reckon with but have there been Dastans/ narratives about
'historical' events.

Some day, you may consider contacting Dr.Roma Chatterjee of the Dept of
Sociology, DSE  who has extensively read and written on the analysis of
narratives. Her thesis on Purulia and its oral traditions may be of
interest.(Purulia is also home to one type of the Chhau dance)

(A propos the 'historical' I specifically recall from Dr.Chatterjee's
fieldwork a song that was composed about the Damodar Valley Corporation's
entry into the scene...But all this is not meant to take you too far afield)

You may certainly believe that what you did was effortless but perhaps all
your life you have prepared for this,absorbing the language and the world
that the dastan belongs to... that's a lot, isn't it ?

In deciding to adopt or create a certain style...what forms of
conversation/speech went into the making of this performance?

Some of the Farsi/Urdu usage certainly did elude me, but when I think of it,
I would rather that a small preface/ longish sub title as in pre 20th
century style of  titles  for the uninititated be added.( Example " In which
the hero ....undergoes..../journeys ... et al )  Recently, I watched an
Opera performance in Delhi which had the English translation of the Italian
scrolling down on large screens on either side of the huge stage. I think it
a huge achievement that what you accomplished was to include the audience in
its variety without any such intervention.

The text certainly provides the base for the performance but it was the act
of storytelling that Himanshu and you undertook that conveyed a  'nafasat'
combined with directness, the horrific/fantastical juxtaposed with the
scatological, a vitality that was palpable... The bareness of the stage was
wonderful, a wonderful foil to the emroideries and ornaments of speech,
never taking away from the hold of the storytelling.

Punam










----- Original Message -----
From: "mahmood farooqui" <mahmoodfarooqui at yahoo.com>
To: "Anand Vivek Taneja" <radiofreealtair at gmail.com>;
<reader-list at sarai.net>; <himaansh at yahoo.co.in>
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2005 10:49 PM
Subject: [Reader-list] responses to DASTANGOI PERFORMANCE-IIC 4TH MAY


> Dear Vivek,
>
> Lovely to hear from you? How familiar are you with
> Urdu/Hindustani/Hindi?
>
> You must appreciate that I categorise them and yet
> lump them together.
>
> I remember Chandrakanta quite well. It was a big hit.
> I didn't much end up watching it, much to my current
> chagrin.
>
> Chandrakanta is very much a Dastan, in a bowlerised
> form though which, nevertheless, does not reduce its
> importance.
>
> And the Hatim Tai experience you have related are
> quite apt. These Dastans were performed in various
> ways. In the Middle East the performers walked about,
> pretty often. They used pictures, gestures, movements
> in a varied way through the lands where they were
> performed. Since the Art reached its apotheosis in
> Lucknow its performance genre needed particularly to
> be specified. For the reason that that city already
> had a very wide repertoire of performances, oral as
> well as visual.
>
> There was dance, dance-drama and reputedly India's
> first modern play, I am thinking of Amanat Ali's
> Indrasabha in 1848, in addition to oral performances
> of poetry, marsiyas, classical music and several other
> oral recounters as Zakirs, Nassars, qawwals,
> genealogists, bhands, acrobats, bahurupiyas,
> qissakhwans not all of whom performed on stafe.
>
> That is why we chose to give our performances as we
> learnt some performers of yore did it in India. Seated
> down, with restricted movements of hands. Without
> pictures and other tools.
>
> For very obvious reasons we were unsure of how to
> react the language. I am well versed with Urdu so I
> could appreciate even aracane usages and Persianised
> turns of phrase and could therefore appreciate the
> nuances better than my fellow performer. In fact I had
> serious doubts about people apprehending the very
> events/plot that was being recounted to them. Yet we
> were overwhelmed by the universally gushing response
> we received. Intitially we attributed the enthusiasm
> of the response to the preponderance of the
> Urdu-knowing lot in the audience. But we were
> disaubsed soon enough by the response of many who were
> quite far from being susceptible to the 'beauty' of
> Urdu-an imperialist/hegemonic reaction if you ask me.
>
> When one couples this to the fact that we never seemed
> to ourselves to putting any extra effort into
> preparing ourselves for the performance other than
> rehearsing regularly, the awesome beauty of stands
> easily out. Our comparative lack of effort and the
> vitality of the response is apt proof of the vibrancy
> of the text, the very material, we had in our hands.
>
> For the moment all I want to do is to perform again,
> to experience the thrill again, if possible, of a
> small auditorium swaying to the very Indic rhythms of
> waah waahi...
>
> Mahmood.
>
> I am copying to this mail to my fellow performer
> Himaanshu Tyagi to invite his response.
>
>
>
>
> --- Anand Vivek Taneja <radiofreealtair at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Dear Mahmood,
> >
> > Thanks for an invitation for the wonderful
> > performance.
> > A few thoughts arose as to the survival of forms of
> > dastangoi, or of the
> > culture of the dastan (albeit transmuted into modern
> > times....)
> >
> > In your first posting you wrote,
> > "Last week I went to meet a scholar of medieval
> > Hindi-Urdu romance traditions. He told me about an
> > exhibition based on the Hamzanama, the illustrated
> > text of the story commissioned by Akbar that was the
> > first major art project undertaken in the young
> > MUghal
> > Empire. His guess is that the large size of the
> > folios
> > in that exhibition, as well as the fact that
> > episodes
> > drawn are written at the back, mean that the
> > Dastango
> > would stand behind the panel-folio narrating the
> > tale
> > and they would be changed as the scenery and action
> > changed. Dastangoi as practice was then perhaps a
> > proto form of Television."
> >
> > What about Dastangoi on television?
> >
> > I am thinking, of course, of the early ninenties
> > mega serial 'Chandrakanta',
> > which was enormously popular when it was screened.
> > it lived up to all the
> > traditions of dastangoi - stories within stories;
> > and of course, razm, bazm,
> > tilism, and aiyyari. most notably tilism and
> > aiyyari. who can forgte Kroor
> > Singh? Of course, Chandrakanta the serial (directed
> > by Neerja Guleri) was
> > based on Chandrakanta the novel, by Devaki Nandan
> > Khatri, generally agreeed
> > upon as being the first prose work in Hindi...
> >
> > So Devaki Nandan Khatri via Neerja Guleri might be
> > an intersting line of
> > inquiry to follow... the continuation of the
> > dastangoi into other forms.
> >
> > Also, what about Hatim Tai?
> >
> > In my childhood in Lucknow, Lucknow DD used to show
> > watercolours of Hatim
> > Tai's adventures, slowly dissolving from one to the
> > other as the the single
> > narrator's voice told the story of the adventures.
> > Very like the Mughal
> > Illustrated version of the Hamzanama.
> > The Hatim-Tai story was also serialised in
> > 'ChandaMama', the Hindi
> > Children's magazine; was used in at least one Hindi
> > film (starring
> > Jeetendra) and has now seen a revival of sorts on, i
> > think, Star Plus...
> >
> > Thanks for wonderfully engaing postings so far, and
> > I hpe these reponses are
> > of hhelp.
> > Cheers,
> > Anand
> >
> >
> >
> > On 4/22/05, mahmood farooqui
> > <mahmoodfarooqui at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Dear All,
> > >
> > > We are trying to devise a Dastangoi performance.
> > The
> > > first attempt is on at the IIC at the 4th May at
> > 6.30
> > > pm. Obviously, as modern actors, we are wholly
> > > ill-equipped to use our voices in the manner that
> > the
> > > Dastangos of yore could do it. Still, one would
> > like
> > > to find out what it was that could make Emperor
> > 'Akbar
> > > cry like a child' or make the poet Ghalib feel he
> > had
> > > attained heaven because 'it is raining, he has
> > > six-volumes of Dastans with him and a few bottles
> > of
> > > wine, what more could he want.'
> > >
> > > Do come.
> > >
> > > MF