Dastangoi was once a thriving art of Urdu story-telling. Its last great practitioner died in 1928, but it has recently regained critical acclaim due to the work of distinguished scholar, filmmaker, and performance artist, Mahmood Farooqui. This is a rare opportunity to experience this unique art form, and participate in its revival -- which has been underway since 2005. For more information on this art form see:
Dastangoi Blogspot
Mahmood Farooqui of New Delhi, India is a dynamic figure whose range of interests and activities make it difficult to categorize him: he is at once a historian, a theatre persona, a filmmaker, and a critic. He might best be characterized as a cultural critic, and he is one with impressive scholarly credentials. His academic training includes degrees from St. Stephens College, Delhi University, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar), and Cambridge University. His scholarly publications include his recently published book of translations (from Persian and Urdu) of documents that provide keen insights into the everyday experience of the War of Independence of 1857-58 in Delhi,
Besieged: Voices from Delhi, 1857 (New Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 2010).
He is currently in residence in the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor this September and October as a “Visiting Scholars from the Muslim World” fellow and is doing research for his current writing project: a study of the late-nineteenth century publication and circulation of the forty-six volume Dastan-i-Amir Hamza in India. Farooqui’s project examines the publication of the Dastan-i-Amir Hamza as a crucial moment in the cultural history of modern India, pointing to the interconnections between oral storytelling traditions and print culture
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