story telling tradition of Dastangoi being revived

storytellers called dastangos are striving to revive the Dastangoi- an ancient art of Urdu storytelling, which has got lost in the pages of history.

Under the practise two men dressed in white seated before the audience start narrating a story that conjures up a magical world of 'Aiiyars' (tricksters) and magicians who fight each other with the former always managing to outsmart the other.

Mahmood Farooqui, who has been working over the past few years to revive the art says, "It has been five years since I began. For my first show I did not have a clear sense of direction but was encouraged by the number of people who turned up to watch."

"We continued to perform dastans and people listened. I hope Dastangoi makes inroads in the street, in mehfils and there are dastans everywhere," he says.

'Tilism-e-Hoshruba' is the favourite 'dastan' of Farooqi, who travels with his companion and narrates in places in Delhi and Mumbai.

Translated it means 'enchantment that steals away the senses' this particular narrative follows closely the practice that evolved in 18th century in India and was popular both among aristocracy and the lay people in Lucknow.

The most famous 'dastan' version, the 'Dastan of Hamza' was printed in 46 huge volumes at the end of the 19th century in Lucknow. The illustrated manuscript created during the rule of Mughal emperor Akbar takes a look at the conflict between the righteous Amir Hamza and Laqa who falsely claims divinity.

Though parts of the Hamza Nama had been printed earlier, it was the famous Munshi Naval Kishore one of the early pioneers of printing in India who undertook the task of printing the whole dastan late in the nineteenth century.

Danish Hussein, who teamed up with Farooqui for the Dastangoi performance at the annual Journalism fest of Kamla Nehru College says, "I joined Mahmood in 2005 when Habib Tanveer introduced me to him in 2005 and it was very challenging for me as an actor.

Fortunately, we always found people receptive towards Dastangoi."
"In 1928, Delhi's last dastango Mir Baqr Ali died, I cannot say we perform dastans like the 'dastangos' of ancient times, we do it as per our understanding. We don't know how dastans were performed but all we know is we need to take it more beyond.

"It would be fun if there are more dastangos who can recite a 'Dastan' and spread this oral tradition," says Farooqi who picked up the 'Dastan of Hamza' lying with his Uncle SR Faruqi, said to be the only person who possesses a full set of 46 volumes.

With stalwarts like national award winning actor Naseerrudin Shah joining to promote the art, Dastangoi is set to catch the public interest.

But since the art of Dastangoi uses literal Urdu, was language ever a barrier to connect with the audience?

"Even if people don't understand the language you still can enjoy Dastangoi.There is no one who understands Urdu and even those who know the language find it difficult to comprehend the nuisances. The words have there audio sound which makes you understand the story," says Farooqi.

The duo have also tried to contemporarise the art form and make it a platform to raise contemporary issues in the society.

"There is direct conversation in dastangoi and we have performed dastans on Chattisgarh which is in turmoil and on Partition. For the Partition dastan we have taken excerpts from other writers and woven it to create the partition dastan.It depends on the dastango to take the art forward and create a dastan which can talk about politics and contemporary social issues, says Hussein.

"People go and see the opera even though not all of them would understand Italian. We want to take the the art beyond, I have heard about an epic 'Ganga Avtaran' in Sanskrit and we would love to perform that. We want people to listen to Ramcharit Manas and much more," says Farooqi.

Now, 'dastans' are being translated into English and the duo reckons that they have no problem if dastans are performed in English but they believe the orality has to be maintained in the translation. (BJ-05/10)

Rebirth of a tree

in the city of Nagpur, in central India, a 150 year old banyan tree with the girth of 37 ft had been dying a slow death. Excavations for road widening and haphazard dumping of garbage around the tree appeared to be making the tree into wood. Some active citizens came together to save the tree from almost certain death. After their persistant efforts local muncipal body agreed to adt and cleared the polythene and garnage that was suffocating the root holding soil. A Pest control firm treated the soil for termite control. With the tree's degradation its aerial shoots have stooped growing downwards. Activists have attached sacks of soil to their tips and water those sacks regularly.

Efforts of all these people seem to be bearing fruits and the banyan tree is begining to reviving and is beginning to sprout fresh leaves once again.

With this banyan tree on its way to recovery, activists have identified other rare tress that need to be saved. They have turned their focus on one of the only two remaining Baobab tree, which is getting buried in a grwoing dump hill.

AIR programme on ragpickers, homeless is nominated for a UN Award

A broadcast on the hopes and dreams of rag pickers and homeless children by Lucknow station of All India Radio (a state owned radio) has earned a nomination for a prestigious global award by a UN agency.

Other nominees for the International Children's Day of Broadcasting (ICDB) award include broadcasters from Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, Germany, Ghana, Malaysia, South Africa, Togo and Ukraine.

The ICDB awards were launched by UNICEF in 1991 to encourage broadcasters worldwide to create awareness for children's issues.

Each nominees won a regional competition and now go on to compete for global honors, UNICEF officials said.

The winner of the 2009 ICDB Awards will be announced at a ceremony in New York on 10th November.

Free market forces towards innovative ways in Indian mobile sector

A mobile service company in India has launched an Agri voucher for farmers. Without knowing the details of the scheme, I find it interesting that market competition is encouraging companies to address customers, segments, regions, needs in innovative ways. Its interesting for sure.

This voucher will cost Rs75 (USD1.5) per month. Farmer can choose 2 out of 49 types. And on those two he will get information on market volumes, rates. He will also get weather forcast for 24 hrs, best ways of farming for the two types he has selected, much more related information on farming and marketing.

Compulsory COnvoy System to be withdrawn in Tripura

State government of Tripura, India has decided to withdraw compulsory security convoy system.

Following a review of threat perception, Tripura government has decided to withdraw the 16-year-old compulsory security convoy system for vehicles passing through the Assam-Agartala National Highway.

The compulsory escort system of moving vehicles in convoy was introduced in 1993 post the militant attacks. The system was considered to be the lifeline of the state.

Recent achievements by Indian sportsmen

Some significant sports news:

1. Its the first time in history of Indian tennis that Indian have advanced to second round of a grand slam tennis tournament in both men's and women's signles. Congradulations and best wishes to sania Mirza and Somdev Ddevvarman, and to all Indians. There are also two more Indians, Mahesh Bhupati and Leander Paes, with different partners particiapting in Men's Doubles and Mixed Doubles. In Mixed Doubles they hold top two seedings.

2. Force One, the team owned by Vijay Mallya, in Formula 1 GP motoracing has one points for the first time. Its car came second.

3. Nehru Cup football tournament was recently held in Delhi where 5 countries other than India participated. India won the title. For the semi-finals and finals, the stadium stnads were full to capacity. Hope this is representative of increasing popularity of sports other than cricket. All India Football Federation has announced cash awards for each player of the winning team

Indian Human Rights Commission considering special guidelines on healthcare

National Human Right Commission in India is preparing comprehensive guidelines on healthcare with special emphasis on mental illnesses and communicable diseases. The rights body had recently expressed concern over violation of right specially of persons suffering with mental illnesses. One NHRC member has noted, "there are instances where mentally challenged persons who require long stay in medical care have been languishing in hospitals in absence of rehabilitation measures".

I find it noteworthy that healthcare is being treated as basic human right and that mental illnesses are being considered as an illnesses and which can be and need to be addressed. If India really walks on this path then I hope that emphasis will gradually shift from illness to health, both physical health and mental health