By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: Renowned Dastangoes Mahmood Farooqui and Darain Shahidi presented Dasntangoi as part of the 94th Foundation Day Celebrations on Wednesday evening. Dastangoi is a 16th century oral story-telling art form which was revived in 2005 by Mahmood Farooqui along with his aides, has performed Dastangoi in India, Pakistan and the United States.
The Dastangoi presentation that lasted for two hours mesmerized the audience with its eclecticism and narrative depth. One of the oral narratives presented pertained to the partition of India and its calamitous consequences.
Mahmood Farooqui is a Delhi-based historian, writer and performer. After graduating from the Universities of Oxford (1996), and Cambridge (1999) as a Rhodes Scholar from India, he started his own theater group called ‘Dastak’. Over the last many years, he has been working to revive a lost form of storytelling in Urdu called ‘Dastangoi’. His first book, ‘Besieged: Voices from Delhi 1857′, was published by Penguin India. Mahmood is also the Co-director and Casting Director of the critically acclaimed movie “Peepli Live”.
Darain Shahidi is an award winning Indian journalist, news anchor and story-teller known as Dastango. He is currently working as independent news journalist and is an alumnus of Jamia Millia Islamia.