Sabse khatarnak hota hai murda shanti se bhar jana/ tadap ka na hona/ sab sahan kar jana/ ghar se nikalna kaam par/ aur kaam se lautkar ghar jana/ sabse khatarnak hota hai hamare sapnon ka mar jana.
(There is nothing more dangerous than to be filled with sepulchral peace, to suffer no pangs, to endure quietly, to leave home for work, to return home from work, there is nothing more dangerous than the death of our dreams.)
Mirror to modern life
‘Sab Ton Khatarnak’, the leftist Punjabi poet Paash’s revolutionary work that rages against apathy, is a familiar anthem at protests and rallies. But presented as spoken word framed by heavy guitar work and percussion and backgrounded by visual art? And watched by avid fans of alt rock?
Dastaan Live is a genre-defying performance that has acquired a cult following among Delhi’s young with just nine shows since March. Is it theatre? Is it a rock concert? Is it protest music? A multimedia spectacle? It is all and none of these, as it fuses classic and contemporary Hindi/ Urdu poetry about life in our times, our cities, and the struggle of the ordinary man.
At the India Habitat Centre’s amphitheatre, as the tall walls behind the stage formed a giant screen for the moving images of a nation and people in churn, Dastaan Live played out to packed audiences over two days at the recent Old World Theatre Festival. That the show has a steady following could be read on the faces of its fans, many of who lip-synced to the words of the song and kept the beat.
Music project
It was in 2016 that a bunch of creative artists — musicians, visual designer, photographers — came together to work the rough draft of Dastaan Live. It was planned as a music project incorporating moving visuals and archival speech recordings of political leaders to hold up a mirror to modern Indian life. Politics, religion, poverty, gender, displacement, caste, quotidian struggles — they all find a place in Dastaan Live. The team of 12, including those involved in visuals and production, has seven musicians performing on stage.
“We wanted a live documentation of the realities of life, not just songs played against visuals. We didn’t just want to be a band on a stage with a bunch of songs,” says Anirban Ghosh, bass guitarist and composer. “But how to do this, what lines to draw for ourselves and what boundaries to cross — these were decisions we had to take.”
The first point was the text — poetry was a part of everyone’s life. The works of Faiz, Baba Nagarjun and Nazeer Akbarabadi remain perennially relevant. Though many of those in the crowd at the Old World Theatre Festival event were too young to have heard the poems or understood their political and social contexts, they made their mark. “We are stunned at how their voices are effective even decades after the works were written. How did they know what our reality today would be? It is almost as if nothing has changed over the decades,” says Ghosh, who also wrote the lyrics of ‘Kaun Bataye’, on the havoc wreaked by the politics of hate.
In the highly polarised times we live in, music can do with great effectiveness what the soapbox cannot, at least not without attracting the offence-taking brigade. “Art has the power to talk without preaching by playing with metaphors. It is evocative without being in your face,” says Sumant Balakrishnan, lawyer and guitarist, who together with Ghosh composed all the Dastaan Live songs.
It isn’t unusual for Indian rock/ rap/ indie artistes to use music to make a statement. Indian Ocean has been a strong voice, rallying for the Narmada movement in the 1990s, Ska Vengers has been cheeky in its lampooning of the right wing, Swarathma has sung about deprivation and the environment.
Dastaan Live differs perhaps in that it is a set piece strung with a theatrical narrative. The show is a work in progress, and its creators say it will be built upon, evolving in shape and size while retaining its core. An integral part of the experiment are the visuals projected on to a wall that’s behind, next to or around the singers, depending on the venue. At the Habitat, it scaled a high wall but at Downstairs@47, a salon space in Delhi, it played out in a small corner.
Old poetry, new melody
“We The moving images are a visual complement to the lyrics, the melody and the rhythm of the music, constantly changing and evolving: there is Delhi with its anarchic street corners, the stress of making a living and working in a city, the stress of navigating its roads and people, the flames of a riot, angry faces and what violence does to us all.
all believe in the power of protest but we wanted it framed differently. At the first iteration of the show we had people walk up and ask why this image and why not any other and we gave thought to that feedback. That was good because we were not looking for passive viewing; the visuals should draw the audience in, make them a part of this work,” says Yashas Chandra, photographer and filmmaker who worked on the visual design of the show.
That clicked for Dastaan Live, creating a word-of-mouth buzz around it. Sudheer Rikhari, one of the two lead singers in the show, believes that for those who didn’t know the poetry at its core, it was a revelation, and those who knew it anyway it was a treat to hear it presented so differently.
“What works for us is that we are asking for a dialogue on the issues we raise. We are not pushing any one ideology or ranting against another. We say, here is the truth, what do we do with it? We never harangue, and people appreciate that,” says Rikhari.
The author writes on and lives for music, dance, theatre, and literature.
