Meet Fouzia: From scooter mechanic’s daughter to dastangoi exponent
When you don’t have a big name by your side, it takes time to make your mark,” says India’s first woman dastango, Fouzia Dastango, who forayed into the traditionally maledominated art form in 2006. Dastangoi is 16th-century style of Urdu storytelling. It was her love for Urdu language, literature, and dastangoi that motivated her to take this route.
“It took me nine years to establish myself in this largerthan-life art form. However, the journey is an ongoing one,” says Fouzia, who recently staged a 40-minute poetic performance of parts from the Mahabharata in Gurugram, along with dastango Firoz Khan.
She finds performing for the Gurugram audience a delight. She says, “The audience there is well-read. They are very appreciative of the language; uska lutf uthate hain.”
About the recent performance, she says, “Whenever one speaks of Mahabharata, they immediately think of the 1988 TV show, or recall it in Sanskrit or Hindi languages. But we presented the epic in Urdu, in the language of dastangoi. In our poetic tribute to the epic, we speak of Gita, the battle, and the message of the epic.”
“Jo aaj kal ka daur hain, jis tarah ke halat hain, usmein Mahabharata mein kis tarah jang hui thi, usko hum yaad dilana chah rahe hain logon ko,” adds Fouzia.
She has lived most of her life in Old Delhi’s Pahari Bhojla locality, which coincidentally had once been a home to Mir Baqar Ali, the last legendary dastango. “I come from a humble background. My father was a scooter mechanic. I saw dastangoi and realised my talent for storytelling and started polishing it,” she says.
Whenever one speaks of Mahabharata, they immediately think of the 1988 TV show, and they recall the epic in Sanskrit or Hindi. But we presented it in Urdu. In our poetic tribute, we speak of Gita, the battle, and the epic’s message.
FOUZIA DASTANGO DASTANGO