“Children are the most challenging as well as the most rewarding audience. They are difficult to draw in, but once they are drawn in the warmth they give you is of a different order,” says writer, translator and dastango Mahmood Farooqui.
For the past two years, team dastangoi has been trying to work with and adapt works for children for its performances. After having gone through several options, they have chosen Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and Alice in Wonderland – to be performed as Dastan Alice Ki (by Fouzia and Valentina Trivedi) and Dastan Goopi Bagha Ki (by Ankit Chadha and Poonam Girdhani). They will be performed this Sunday at India Habitat Centre, as part of the Old World Theatre Festival. While they are intended as performances for children, Farooqui is confident adult audiences won’t be alienated. “If a text speaks to children well, it’ll speak to adults as well,” he adds.
The repertoire of dastangoi, a form of storytelling that dates back to the 16th Century, consisted primarily of stories of Amir Hamza, an uncle of Prophet Mohammad. In these stories, Hamza travels to different lands, encountering many adventures, realms and beings. Since its revival in 2005, while these stories have featured prominently in dastangoi performances, new stories and adaptations have also been added to the mix. Some of them have been based on the works of Manto, Rabindranath Tagore and Vijaydan Detha.
While these tales might appear to be a world apart from those of Hamza, they are also similar in many respects. Lewis Carroll’s wonderland is akin to the tilism , or the magical world, of dastans, while Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (the film is an adaptation of short story by Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury), also has ingredients common to dastangoi, says Farooqui. The film, a musical, tells the story of a singer and drummer exiled to a forest on account of their mediocrity. Here, they meet a ghost king who grants them three boons, including the ability to enthral people with their music. They use their powers to bring about peace between the warring kings of Shundi and Halla.
Dastan Goopi Bagha Ki will be their first musical dastangoi, using songs from the film in translation as well as new ones. “Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne I feel is a story that can be done at the Epicentre in Gurgaon down to a village, and that is its appeal. And I daresay the same thing will be possible with Alice. It's the story of any seven-year-old girl with a dream and a fantasy,” says Farooqui.
Did the fact these stories exist on a visual plane (Alice in Wonderland was adapted into a film, most recently, in 2010) make their journey into a purely oral form difficult? “I don’t think anyone can create a visual or an image that is equal to a human’s imagination. What we can think of when we are hearing a story is difficult I feel for any artist to come up with in an image. Hence we are just giving you the story and the words, now you come up with the rest,” Farooqui responds.
The next dastangoi will be based on “The Little Prince”. The idea is to take the art form to schools, where it will find a newer audience, and hopefully new performers.
(Dastan Goopi Bagha Ki and Dastan Alice Ki will be performed at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. respectively, on October 19, at India Habitat Centre)
