1.

“Yeh daaru bikau nahin hai,” declares a woman.

Sorcery, trickery, whoring and wining are a way of life. Mysterious rivers of blood and bridges of smoke flow through realms of the visible and invisible. Behind veils of darkness, wizards are kings and witches make wine and magic.

Amar Aiyaar and Afrasiaab fight battles of wit and Aiyaari is a profession.

2.

Kissas and kahanis in ‘street-corner’ language, narrated by Mahmood Farooqui and Danish Hussain from Tilsim e Hoshruba take you back to a chowk in Lucknow, to a time anywhere from the 9^th century to the 20^th century. Dressed in angrakhas, on white-sheeted mattresses with sliver bowls and snuffboxes, they create the fantastical with twists in tales and you go back to being children at your nani’s knees, rapt, eager to hear more…

Dastangoi encases the medieval art of story-telling that was a courtly ritual. Strongly Persian in bent, it also used the idioms, language and culture from courtly life in Lucknow. A dastango could well be sitting at the steps of the Jama Masjid, or in a tavern, or around a campfire, narrating a kissa to an audience willing to listen.

Beginning from the 1880s, Dastan e Amir Hamza was transcribed in Lucknow for about twenty years. Then, Dastangoi’s dastan slipped into river of silence.

Danish said, “It happened around early 20^th century. Dastangoi has a lot of subversive elements, it took a poke at the Islamic social hierarchy, talked freely about sex, wine, women in the market place, all of which is taboo in an Islamic society, and is not a part of the elite culture. Even my own upbringing, for that matter.”

Mahmood added, “It’s not simply the story of Dastangoi, it’s a lot of other forms of oral performances which also went out of fashion. And we still can’t say that it’s because of the conversion from oral to print culture, since a lot of 19^th century literary and print culture actually takes off on the back of kissas and kahanis. Print culture could not have taken off so quickly had there not been an established taste for the fantastic, the spectacular, the magical, the fable. In a sense, dastans, kissas and kahanis still have a thriving success in a printed form… The decline becomes inexplicable.

“The first thing that people want to read is these stories. In fact, they form the backbone of early Parsi theatre and Hindi cinema. It also depends on people’s tastes. There is a recasting of the religious and social order as well. In the new religious order, we cannot talk so freely about some of the august personalities of our religious history. The way dastangos spoke would be considered heretical in today’s public order. Plus the new kind of literary sensibilities that have come about in Urdu and indigenous languages, they look down on this kind of literature. Fantasy has always been considered children’s literature. Now these barriers are being broken. There is a shift in how we treat fantasy, what place it should have in our heritage. It’s seeing a revival finally.”

3.

Amidst all the multiple layers, parallel worlds, magic and trickery, fixing the unreal in the real comes easily to Mahmood.

“Dastangoi is simply a case of ‘main kahani suna raha hun, aap baith ke suniye.’ Though broadly moral, it was written purely to entertain as an innocuous activity where there is limitless imagination. In its limitlessness of imagination it is seen as subversive, because the minute a dastango launches into a wholly alternate world with its own rules, it can’t help but be a comment on the existing social order as well. The moment you posit a parallel existence, you inherently critique the present world. While we narrate, we may refer to Queen Victoria or events at that time, since the form and content is flexible. Where we go with it is up to how much our audience is willing to share and experiment with us. Dastans certainly create an alternate world, like any speculative fiction, the way Tolkein or Rowling do. People have studied how Dastangoi delves into the social psyche of different social classes, their life in the 19^th century through all that fantasy.”

Does it border on escapism then, this world of enchantment?

Mahmood laughed. “We ascribe a certain pejorative sense to ‘escapism’. Yes, it is escapist in a way, it takes you to a different world but does that mean that when people sit out there and listen to a story for two hours, they are reconciled to the social order? Maybe, when they listen to an alternate social order, it may invigorate them to challenge it. It’s only in the last 100-200 years that one of literature’s obligations is to be a social comment. For the Metaphysical poets like Donne and Marvell, a poet was one who played with words. They didn’t see their job as necessarily commenting on society. There is a de facto comment but it’s not the dastango’s objective to do so. In creating a wholly imaginary world, politics does happen.”

Of moral bondages and morality, Danish explained, “There is no moral theme to these tales. When Hamza’s party wins over Afrasiaab’s side, it seems more an obligation that the storyteller has to perform. It’s not about who is going to win, it’s all about two sets of extra-witty people trying to outsmart the other. Its more like, ‘chalo, let the other guys win.’ It has nothing to do with morality. These are tales of good imagination, how smart an imagination can get, that’s why it is wholesomely entertaining.”

Mahmood spoke animatedly, “Dastans appeal to us today not because they show us the world around us, but because they are fiction at its best. Their world may be far removed, we can still identify with aspects of it and even when we can’t, its fictional world is so full of conviction that no matter where you are, you enjoy it immensely.”

“It appeals because of the long shadow it casts over Hindi cinema. It has Gabbar Singh’s antecedents in there. An unprecedented character in his cruelty, wantonness, the sheer sadism he displays, so realistically cast. You have this supposedly illiterate audience, so sophisticated in its understanding that Gabbar is a hit. Here is a bloodthirsty character created by a filmmaker and then you have Gabbar selling Glucose biscuits! Dastans also have likeable villains who are still working as icons for Hindi cinema, although we need reams of study on the linkages. Dastans are a kind of culmination of many centuries of oral storytelling forms, many structures flow from it. Hence it resonates. With symbols, metaphors, an easy mixing of the ordinary and the extraordinary, the lack of a black and white world, the villainy of heroes and heroines.”

Society now, and the world then. Connecting the two, Dan said, “It’s all very gray. Amir Hamza’s army fights for the ‘good’ against Laqa’s evil forces. But when you read the nature of the characters involved, it’s hard to distinguish at times as to where lies the evil and which side are the righteous people. It’s ironical. Afrasiaab, the wicked antagonist, is the character you sympathize with the most because he keeps getting bashed up. Amar Aiyaar, the principle protagonist of Tilism e Hoshruba is akin to our Gabbar Singh – downrightly unethical, devilish.”

“No wonder Dan fits the role better,” Mahmood chuckled, “Lets give Aiyaar a little respectability. Ashis Nandy spoke about Gandhi as an androgynous being in trying to transgress the gender divide across the country. This is what the audiences like.”

Dan added, “We look at the dastans in the same way. When you open up an issue like the Lebanon conflict, you hear people taking sides. It’s hard to decipher who is more in the wrong, who is completely right. Dastangoi is ‘realistic’ in this sense. There is an undercurrent of basing itself on issues that you relate with the underbelly of the society. Open sex, women drinking alcohol (given the time these tales were set) – it was unthinkable and even today they are. Jamia Millia University invited Yatrik group to perform Mirzabagh. They realized the play had two Muslim women drinking on stage. The show was objected to. Imagine, in 2006, the authorities were afraid it might spark off unrest – and then imagine similar things being said and done in medieval times! Dastans have picked on those issues that no one really wants to talk about but are prevalent in the society.”

4.

Mahmood said, “When I first put it on the Sarai reader list as Islamic literature, there were questions. ‘How can we typify Dastangoi as Islamic?’ The multi-volumes of Dastan e Amir Hamza were created in Urdu in Lucknow by lots of non-Muslim and Muslim dastangos. It can’t be treated as Islamic literature. It broadly deals with it. Some of the protagonists speak in the name of Islam. I’m not sure as to what we mean by Islamic literature. What is its relationship with the religion of Islam, with the social practices of Islam, with its textual tradition?

“Among the entire gamut of characters, a minority would be Muslim. I’m not sure how exactly it dovetails with Islamism per se, but its Persian tones are no longer important in this century. Urdu poetry has diverged from Persian poetry. It is deeply rooted in North Indian poetic realms. Its affinity with Sanskrit in terms of poetics, aesthetics and literary culture is evident. Hafiz makes as much sense as does Anand Vardhan or Mir. You can’t read Urdu poetry without reading Sanskrit theoreticians. The kind if Islam and the kind of Muslims that we come across in the dastans are far removed from the stereotype Muslims of today. There are obvious transformations, systemizations, homogenizations of people and communities that have come into play.”

“The prefix, ‘Islamic’ is very facile”, Dan said. “The tales of Dastangoi are like a template that can fit into culture. There is a certain universality about Dastangoi. It could be a part of Japanese or Chinese culture. The Islamic voice is there but to call it Islamic in totality is misjudging. A tint, a shade, a color of cultural nuances from a certain region is apt. If you were a student of Islamic theology, you’d be appalled by what it’s all about. I don’t think we need any improvisations to make it secular. It is very secular in terms of the message it sends to the audience. When Nawal Kishore got it transcribed in Lucknow, a lot of Indian secular context crept in. There are references to an ahir, a baniya, a dhobi, a seth. The context of Dastangoi is that of the public realm.”

5.

If it’s ‘high-class masala entertainment’, Mahmood felt it did not take away from the richness of the art form. “A dastan has many shades to it. It’s not like a finished product, a three hour film or a novel. Different writers have added varying qualities to it. Ahmed Hussain Kamar does double-meaning and body dialogues much better than other dastangos, while Ahmed Hussain Jah’s writing is very poetic. It is a constantly improvised art form. They always have scope to play upon and extend strains which they thought the audience would enjoy. Depending on whether I’m performing on a street side or a noble’s chamber I would adapt, hence it’s capable of taking on any form, color, emphasis.”

Dan simplified it to the basics, “Any art form is masala entertainment at the end of it. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t graduate to being appreciated by the audience.”

Razm, Bazm and Aiyaari are still “a way of life,” Mahmood said. “It’s everywhere. A recent survey on TV said there’s a 20% increase in people drinking these days. Bazm se toh mehfil banti hai, bina bazm ke dastangoi kahan? Aiyaari has been taken over by financial corporations. We’re surrounded by Aiyaars everywhere. It’s increasingly becoming a tilismic world, with people who’re supplying arms pointing out, ‘look they’re fighting’. A lose translation of tilism is maya. We are living in a mayavi world today. The moment we encounter multiple realms in Dastangoi, we open up a mayavi jaal, which can be applied to this world. It’s a kind of questioning, an illusion. Are we living through it? It’s as if someone is playing with us, like Shakespeare makes us feel the stars are sporting with us, so the idea that we’re in a world of magic reveals all kinds of shifts in meanings.”

6.

Naseeruddin Shah read Mahmood’s interview in Tehelka. Over the phone, he said, “Since I’m not too into Urdu Literature, I’d heard only vaguely about Tilism e Hoshruba. The way Mahmood spoke about the stories, the business of storytelling on stage intrigued me. The performance had me mesmerized, the complete zaniness of the story, the off-centre quality of the characters, the total freak out fantasy and the great amount of skill of both Mahmood and Danish made me resolve to learn more about Dastangoi and collaborate with them in the future. Storytelling is a very pure, valid and the most effective from of theatre… It’s great to see Mahmood going back to basic storytelling which will lead to something original and help us devise techniques for writing plays.”

Says Mahmood, “The simple story of Amar Aiyaar capturing Afrasiaab keeps going on and on for 8 volumes. Every time Afrasiaab sends a magician, he either gets killed or captured. It’s an episodic formula on which it keeps building up so it is about letting go of our current prejudices about how a story should be structured… It’s about constructing a story in which the plot somehow vanishes and all you are left with is the telling of the story. There’s a joke about the dastango who started by mounting a horse in the morning. Uski dum, uski lagaam, uska zeen, uska taal, uski naal, uska seena, uska zewar, uske upar baithne wala – toh subaah se shaam ho gayi. It’s a letting go of what you want to hear and what you want to create, because the important thing is not the story, it’s the telling, which is a very modern idea as well.”

Naseer was right when he said, “The musicality of the writing, a sparkle, a freshness which has remained over the centuries… is perhaps because of the adlibbing done over the generations, just like Shakespeare’s work, this is still very vibrant. It’s not pedagogic or esoterically literary and has you completely involved.”

For those who don’t understand Urdu, Dan is helpful. “We do give pointers, make changes in words from the script to make it easier to understand and grasp the basic thread of the story. What we found is people love to hear a good story. We retain all our childhood stories even though our routines have fudged the innocence. The moment you enter a Dastangoi session, that certain element of innocence, mysteriousness sucks people in. Language can never be a barrier in this case. We’ve had Europeans watching us, who though they didn’t understand the language, caught it truly by the expressions, intonations, enjoying it completely. A lot is in the telling. Your skill as a storyteller, the way you put words in a particular fashion, makes an immediate impact on the audience.”

7.

Dan said, “Mahmood was skeptical when he performed at IIC for the first time. The response was ecstatic then, but the apprehensions continue about how it would be responded to in different settings before different sets of people… We’re looking at a tradition which is immensely popular across the masses. Like the Ramlila, although it’s restricted to space, is not elitist. Dastangoi’s strength is that it breaks free from space.”

The struggle to focus, revive and grow, said Mahmood, “is a two-pronged struggle. We are trying to explore the narrative, understand the art form and see what we can do to with it and at the same time we want to rope in more people to perform independently. Now that we’ve performed to a variety of audiences in Delhi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Patna, before students, blind children, non-Urdu speaking audiences and the shows have been immensely liked, the struggle has doubled. For those who’ve seen Dastangoi, its appeal is unbounded but it’s difficult to convince them what a roaring success it is.”

“It’s all very well to say we’ve achieved success but we need many more dastangos in many more cities doing it in different styles for Dastangoi to really take off as an art form. So far we have pointed attention to it but to mobilize it into a movement, to make many more people like it, we need more people involved. We cannot rise alone, for we can’t sift grain from the chaff unless we have a body of work to choose from. That’s our fundamental dream.”

Dastangoi will travel from Lucknow to Lahore. They double up as their own agents and promoters. “We’ve reconciled ourselves to the fact that we are here, we are not going to go away. We have 46 volumes… So, sooner or later, the world is going to come to us.”