Dastangoi

Amir Khusrow teaching his disciples

Dastangoi is a 13th century Urdu oral storytelling art form. Hindavi Dastangoi invented by Amīr Khusrow. The Persian style of dastangoi evolved in 16th century. This form of the art was revived in 2005 and thousands of shows have been performed in India and abrod since than. One of the earliest references in print to dastangoi is a 19th-century text containing 46 volumes of the adventures of Amir Hamza titled Dastan e Amir Hamza.

The art form reached its zenith in the Indian sub-continent in the 19th century and is said to have died with the demise of Mir Baqar Ali in 1928. Indian poet and Urdu critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi and his nephew, writer, director Mahmood Farooqui, have played significant roles in its revival in the 21st century.

At the centre of dastangoi is the dastango, or storyteller, whose voice is his main artistic tool in orally recreating the dastan or the story. Notable 19th-century dastangos included Amba Prasad Rasa, Mir Ahmad Ali Rampuri, Muhammad Amir Khan, Syed Husain Jah, and Ghulam Raza.

A female dastango standing and reciting from the "Arabian Nights" while the audience sits around her -1911

Vyasa (sitting on high table), the common title for Indian oral storytellers, reciting epics among villagers, 1913

An Indian traditional oral storytller Dastangoi artist reciting the "Dastan-e-Amir Khusrau"

Etymology

Dastangoi has its origin in the Persian language. Dastan means a tale; the suffix -goi makes the word mean "to tell a tale".

Hindustani DastanGoi origin

Hindustani Dastangoi also known as Hindavi or Darbari Dastangoi. is an oral art of storytelling. 12th century. Legend has it that Amir Khusrow's master and Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya had fallen ill. To cheer him up, Amir Khusro started telling him a series of dastans Qissa-e-Chahār Dervish (قصه چهار درویش‎‎ ' The Tale of the Four Dervishes / Bagh-o-Bahar (باغ و بہار, "Garden and Spring") (One Thousand and One Nights style dastan). By the end of the stories, Nizamuddin Auliya had recovered, and prayed that anyone who listened to these stories would also be cured.

History

Indian urban anthropologist Ghaus Ansari ascribed the origin of dastangoi to Pre-Islamic Arabia, and detailed how the eastward spread of Islam carried dastangoi to Iran and then to Delhi in India. From Delhi, dastangoi made its way to Lucknow in the 18th century, aided by the Indian Rebellion of 1857, during which several artists, writers and dastangos moved from Delhi to Lucknow.

In Lucknow, dastangoi was popular across all classes, and was regularly performed at diverse locations including chowks (city squares), private households, and afeem khana (public opium houses). "It became so popular among opium addicts that they made listening to stories an important element of their gatherings," wrote Ansari. "The prolonged intoxication and prolonged stories narrated by professional story-tellers was mostly combined. Each afeem khana had its own story-teller to entertain the clients; whereas, among the rich, every household used to appoint a dastango as a member of its staff."

The early dastangois told tales of magic, war and adventure, and borrowed freely from other stories such as the Arabian Nights, storytellers such as Rumi, and storytelling traditions such as the Panchatantra. From the 14th century, Persian dastangois started focusing on the life and adventures of Amir Hamza, the paternal uncle of the prophet Muhammad. The Indian stream of dastangoi added storytelling elements such as aiyyari (trickery) to these tales.

List of early Urdu Dastans

• Nau tarz-i murassa‘ - Husain ‘Atā Khān Tahsīn
• Nau ā'īn-i hindī (Qissa-i Malik Mahmūd Gīti-Afroz) - Mihr Chand Khatrī
• Jazb-i ‘ishq - Shāh Husain Haqīqat
• Nau tarz-i murassa‘ - Muhammad Hādī a.k.a. Mirzā Mughal Ghāfil
• Ārā'ish-i mahfil (Qissa-i Hātim Tā'ī) - Haidar Bakhsh Haidarī
• Bāgh o bahār (Qissa-i chahār darwesh) - Mīr Amman
• Dāstān-i Amīr Hamza - Khalīl ‘Alī Khān Ashk
• Fasana e Ajaib - Rajab Ali Baig Suroor
• "Deval Devi-Khizr Khan"- The Vaghela princess and Delhi's Khilji King Romantic dastan. - Amir Khusrau
• Khamsa (Khamsa-e-Khusrau) five classical romances dastan: Hasht-Bihisht, Matlaul-Anwar, Khosrow and Shirin, Layla and Majnun and Aaina-Sikandari. - Amir Khusrow

Dastangoi in print

Fort William College in Kolkata published an Urdu version of the dastaan of Amir Hamza in the beginning of the 19th century. Munshi Nawal Kishore, a publisher in Lucknow, began publishing the dastaans by the 1850s. A few publications were also done in Persian.

• In 1881, Nawal Kishore commissioned the print edition of the entire Hamza dastaan from three dastangos, Mohammed Husain Jah, Ahmed Husain Qamar, and Sheikh Tasadduq Husain. Over a period of twenty five years, the trio produced a collection of 46 volumes. Each volume could be read individually or as a part of the complete work.

• Dastangoi', a collection of episodes performed by mahmood Farooqui and his team. 2012. = Mahmood Farooqui and mohammad Qazim.

• Dastan-e-Hind, A bunch of 100 indian folklores (traditional folk dastan's). 2010. = Syed Sahil Agha

Dastangoi in fiction

Attempts have been made to popularise the tradition of "dastangoi" in different languages. In International Kolkata Book Fair, 2017, a Bengali novel titled Dastangoi, authored by Abhisek Sarkar has been published by Trtiyo Parisar, a Bengali publisher. The novel chronicles the coming of age of a dastango amidst the political pell mell of 1990s in India. The fiction set in three cities Delhi, Kolkata and Aligarh keeps travelling between the real and the fantastic worlds of Shehnama, Hamzanama and Sikandarnama.

External links

• Pritchett, Frances W. (1991). The Romance Tradition in Urdu : Adventures from the Dastan of Amir Hamzah. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231071642. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
• Farooqui, Mahmood (Autumn–Winter 20112011). "Dastangoi: Revival of the Mughal art of storytelling". Context: Journal of the Development and Research Organisation for Nature Arts and Heritage. VIII (2): 31–37. Retrieved 19 December 2012. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Ghalib Lakhnavi & Abdullah Bilgram, trans Musharraf Ali Farooqi (2012). The Adventures of Amir Hamza: Special Abridged Edition. New York: Modern Library. ISBN 978-0-8129-7744-8.