At the 4th edition of Jashn-e-Rekhta here, dastango Nadeem Shah Suharwardy and Shankar Musafir adapted a three-page dastaan by Rajasthan’s famous storyteller Vijaydan Detha and delivered it in a semi-theatrical hour-long performance.
An Assistant Professor of medieval history at Delhi University, Prof. Suharwardy has been telling dastaans since 2010. Growing up in the western Uttar Pradesh town of Saharanpur, he recalls a childhood full of storytellers and poets, and how everyone he knew talked Ghalib, Faiz, Daagh, and Momin.
‘Responsibility’
Dastangoi , he said, was both a passion born out of his love for Urdu as well as a “responsibility” to preserve the art and the language.
Kahani Pandit Ki , Dastan Umru Ayyar Aur Ghirbaal Jadu Ki , Husn e Faiz and Kahani Mahesh Ki are some of the dastaans that the artiste has adapted and produced several times.
Stating that traditional Persian dastangoi does not receive much audience, he said contemporary dastangoi , which is performed in a much simpler language has become more popular. He stressed that the beauty of this art is the scope of its performance.
“ Dastangoi is not merely a narration but a performance in which engagement with the audience, energy, voice modulation, facial expressions and gestures make it different from telling. A dastango can only emote using his torso, his only prop at hand. We cannot afford to perform a difficult story because we will end up explaining the story and the performance will be lost.”
Absence of precedents, he said, is both a boon as well as a bane — though artistes can afford some creative liberties, they do not have a definite template to derive from.
“Adaptation and a powerful narration are both crucial to the art of dastangoi . This art has a great history. Nowadays, there are many tellers who do take cognizance of that. They are merely story tellers and not dastango .”
He talked about the need to bring the art at par with other classical art forms by performing it in consonance with the Rasa theory.
“I conduct workshops to engage students with this art quite often so we have a generation to take it forward. However, no one will be encouraged to take it up as a profession unless there are incentives by the government. There is respect and recognition but art always been underpaid. I would happily give up my job if I earned decently from telling dastaans and teaching this art,” he said.
