Dastan-e Karn Az Mahabharata by MAHMOOD FAROOQUI was not just a tale of the character but also represented the artist’s real life experience, says Saimi Sattar
Mahmood Farooqui, the name conjures up many images for many people. He burst upon popular imagination as initially the co-producer of the immensely popular and critically acclaimed movie, Peepli live that his wife Anusha Rizvi directed. But Farooqui came into his own with his attempts to revive Dastangoi, a lost form of Urdu story telling that was popular in the 13th century. However, of late he has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In August 2016 he was found guilty of rape by a lower court, but in September 2017 he was acquitted by the Delhi High Court.
So when one sits down to view his very first Dastangoi outing, post acquittal, it has to be placed in context — him leading the revival of the art as well as his indictment and later acquittal.
Farooqui performed Dastan-e Karn Az Mahabharata, based on the life of the much-wronged son of the sun god and Kunti. Discriminated against for all the wrong reasons, Karna comes out looking like the hero even though he was not on the side that won and was also perceived to be in the wrong.
Having placed it in context, there were many things that the Dastan offered. It was a trailblazing display of Farooqui’s hold over the languages as he effortlessly slipped from Urdu to Sanskrit to Persian to Arabic and Hindi. The Dastan drew upon a variety of sources including the original Mahabharata and its Hindi translation. In Urdu, it had parts of the posthumous translation of the Mahabharata by the Pakistani writer Kamran Aslam as well as Tota Ram Shayan’s 200-year-old verse. In Hindi, the sources included, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s magnum opus on Karna and Rashmi Rathi, Dharmvir Bharti’s Andha Yug. It also featured parts of Razmnama, Emperor Akbar’s translation of the Mahabharata and Shivaji Sawant’s bestselling Marathi novel Mrityunjay.
Farooqui managed to create a rich tapestery of languages by virtue of which he sketched pictures across the stage. One moment he would be chanting a shlok from the Gita and the next with equal finesse, he would shift onto an aayat from the Qur’an, without so much as missing a consonant. In the end all the languages seemed to be a part of one whole — Farooqui’s ode to the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of which paeans are spoken when referring to his native state of Uttar Pradesh.
The picture that he creates by the sheer magic of Farooqui’s words is such that the audience can practically see the action happening on stage. One can almost imaging Bhishma Pitamah lying on the bed of arrows or Abhimanyu trapped within the Chakravyuh. But above all what got most vividly depicted were the instances of Karna’s humiliation and his stellar qualities of courage as well as loyalty to Duryodhana. Whether it was the discovery of him being a Sutputra by his guru Parshuram rather than a Brahmin or refusal by Draupadi to be betrothed to him for the same reason. Farooqui did not move from his assigned place but the visual impact of his words was such that one could actually see the characters in front of our eyes.
The interesting part was that the stage did not have much to speak of by way of props. A takht (covered with a pristine white sheet, a shama (to call them candles and not the Urdu equivalent would be to make them something which is commonplace and utilitarian and thus take away the effect that they were there to create) on either side, two qalaidaar katoras (polished bowls) was all that was there. But did Farooqui, dressed in a blinding white chikankari angarkha need anything moreIJ Nay, that would have been the singular cry going up from the audience who were echoing their appreciation in the form of wah wah and claps as the occasion demanded.
The tale was well-told and often placed in the present context. Karna, in the end, became a celebration of the life, the turbulent times which Farooqui has inhabited.