Art of Dastangoi: An Age-Old Way of Storytelling and Cultural Revival

Dastangoi, an age-old Urdu storytelling tradition which very few know about. I have been performing Dastangoi for seven years. It is a unique form of performance resting on a combination of recitation, performance, and narration.

Dastangoi is an art form that almost died in 19th Century but later got revived in 2005 by few culture connoisseurs. It is said that Mir Baqar Ali, one of the most famous and the last dastango in India, used to recite dastans for days on the stairs of Jama Masjid in Delhi and people would sit and listen to him. The modern style now has a evolved storytelling style incorporating interactions with various epic traditions picked across different regions and generations.

I have been part of a Collective where we have moulded the traditional Dastangoi format to tell significant stories of revolution, which include narratives of significant lives like Gandhiji, Bhagat Singh, and events like Jalliwanwala massacre by the colonial British government. Alongside there are also performances of folktales which are deep rooted in the Indian subcontinent. I have been writing, performing and producing shows for the Dastangoi Collective and have had the privilege of collaborating with esteemed institutions like the National School of Drama and Ashoka University as a visiting faculty.

Teaching Dastangoi to students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, has been both interesting and powerful. It was heartening to see students challenge their own biases and stereotypes about the language. Additionally, some students were inspired to explore their own cultural heritage and present it in the form of dastans.

What I find most interesting about Dastangoi is the way this artform engages with the power of listening. As a part of oral tradition, hearing is the sense which is given most importance. As a dastangos, we are trying to recreate this and we have observed how people, despite of distractions like mobile phones get engrossed in the story. We have seen people sitting for hours to listen, and sometimes even longing for more. Even children, who we know are one of the most difficult audiences in terms of attention span, love listening to Dastans. It is spectacular when sometimes the audience turns around to look in the direction we are pointing to and expect the character to be there.

Therefore, I see Dastangoi as a great tool where people listen to a story, something so relatable, that for those few hours they are completely detached from the virtual world and are left purely with their thoughts. It lets their imagination flow and shows how vivid it is, as each person in the audience imagines a character differently. That is one of the magics of Dastangoi, it makes you interact with your own thoughts and imagination while you are still in the real world.

After practicing and learning this art-form for years, I have realised that this is not a profession, but it is a way of life. I do hope that this art-form continues to inspire many more and they keep such hidden gems and cultures of India alive by encouraging it.