For the first time, the theatre lovers of the city experienced the spellbinding story narration of old times. A Dastangoi show ‘Dastan-e-Chauboli’ was performed here on Sunday at Antarang hall, Bharat Bhawan.
The Dastangoi show was performed to mark the concluding day of the five day theatre festival ‘Folk Theatre Festival’ that began on June 11.
The play is adapted and directed by Mahmood Farooqui. The play was performed by Manu Sikander Dhingra and Nadeem Shah. Notably it is based on the version created by Vijay Daan Detha.
In earlier times, in Rajasthan a king was famous for his archery. But as a cruel act he used to shot arrows from queen’s nose ring. One day the youngest queen challenged him to marry Chauboli.
Princess Chauboli had vowed that she would only marry a man who can make her speak four times in one night.
Seventeen times twenty-four princes tried and failed and were rotting in the dungeon grinding fodder for horses. A brave and valiant Thakur, one who shoots 108 arrows through his wife’s nose-ring every day, wishes to try his luck. What happens to himIJ How will Chouboli be wonIJ Chouboli is a funny, bitter, sarcastic and lyrical take on Indian life.
While talking about the Dastangoi art, Mohmmad Farooqui informed that the word Dastangoi refers to the art of storytelling, it is a compound of two Persian words Dastan and goi which means to tell a Dastan. Dastans were epics, often oral in nature, which were recited or read aloud and in essence were like medieval romances everywhere. Telling tales of adventure, magic and warfare, Dastans mapped new worlds and horizons, encountered the unseen and protected the hero through many travails and lovers as he moved on his quest. The hero’s adventures could sometimes parallel the mystic quest, at other times the story narrated a purely profane tale. In the process of telling the story the narrators freely borrowed tropes and themes from other stories, thus it was that Rumi’s Masnavi and Arabian Nights both came to contain many stories from the Panchtantra tradition.