DASTAN-E-AWADH
WITHOUT DASTANGOI?
TIMES OF INDIA 30/8/25

    The Urdu oral storytelling art form, which flourished in Awadh during the 1800s, is seeing a revival, again mostly from Lucknow, says Neha Lalchandani

    The shifting of Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula’s court from Faizabad to Awadh in 1775 marked the birth of Lucknow as a cultural and administrative hub. Already an important centre of Urdu learning, the city soon emerged as an attractive destination for artists, musicians, and storytellers who once thrived in Mughal courts in Delhi. What started as a steady movement of art connoisseurs to Awadh in the early 1800s intensified around the time of the Uprising of 1857.
    It was during this phase that Lucknow was introduced to the art of Dastangoi or storytelling, which came to the Mughal courts enveloped in Persian and gradually shifted to the use of Urdu.
    Mughal emperor Akbar, a known Dastangoi lover, is credited for pushing the evolution of one of the most popular stories, that of Amir Hamza, now etched as Hamzanama. Mehmood Farooqi, who is credited for with reviving the art of Dastangoi in 2005, writes that Hamza was supposedly an uncle of Prophet Mohammed, and the stories about him abound with tales of fairies and djinns, and adventures that took him on long travels. Around the 16th century, stories of Hamza started to be narrated by specialised storytellers, called Dastangos.
    Valentina Trivedi, a Dastango, says Akbar had the story of Hamza illustrated in large panels, which came to be known as Hamzanama.
    “It is said that a Dastango would stand behind different panels to relate specific stories to highlight the shift in the scene,” she said.
    Himanshu Bajpai, whose pride in the city reflects in his name ‘Lakhnauaa’, relates that Dastan-e-Hamza created quite a flutter in Delhi before moving to Lucknow in the second phase of Dastangoi’s development. Abdul Halim Sharar, in his seminal book on Lucknow called Guzashta Lucknow, talks about how Dastangoi suddenly burst out into Lucknow’s cultural scene once the dust from the Uprising of 1857 settled. Dastangoi performances could be witnessed in markets and chowks, and Lucknow’s “shaukeen” noblemen ensured that they had their favoured Dastango as part of their retinue.
    Lucknow also played a crucial role in ensuring that Hamzanama, which for years was passed on through oral traditions, was finally etched in print.
    Trivedi, explaining how the revival of the art took place almost a century later, when there are barely any recordings of the original art form, said that it was to the credit of Munshi Nawal Kishore, the founder of the Nawal Kishore Press in Lucknow, that Hamzanama was finally printed, “Munshi Nawal Kishore played a key role in the preservation of Hamzanama. Around the 1890s, Kishore must have realised the importance of having the story written down. Under him, 46 volumes, each with 1,000 pages, were finally compiled. Sadly, most of those are also now lost,” she says.
    Some of the volumes were with late Shamsur Rehman Faruqi, a well-known Urdu poet and writer. At one point, Faruqi, apparently impressed with his nephew Mehmood, asked him to take up the recital of the volumes of Hamzanama, which he preserved.
Askari Naqvi, Dastango, actor, and founder of Naimat Khana in Lucknow, remembers an interview of Mehmood’s where he talks about his ‘chacha’ encouraging him to take up Dastangoi.
“If I remember correctly, his ‘chacha’ told him, ‘maare maare phir rahe ho. Yeh (Hamzanama) padho, tumhara bhi bhala hoga aur inka (books) bhi,” Naqvi says. In 2005, Farooqi, who took his uncle’s advice seriously, brought back the art of Dastangoi to life. Mir Baqar Ali from Delhi, the last known Dastango of that era, passed away in 1928, and with him, the art of Urdu Dastangoi also died. “Ali’s art was such that when he related a story, you could see it unfold in front of you,” says Bajpai. “His projection, modulation, and expression were so perfect that he could persuade you to believe that you were hearing a woman, and in the next second someone declaring a war,” he says.
Now, 7-8 decades later, the art of Urdu storytelling has returned to the stage. In its current form, the setting of the state, the white angrakha and do palli topi can also be traced to Farooqi, who has since groomed several Dastangos like Trivedi and Bajpai. “Even this costume is inspired by Lucknow from a time when the libaas (attire) was not restricted to any religion but instead defined the cultural identity of those residing in Lucknow,” Bajpai says.
Where storytellers were once dependent on literature like Alif Laila, Bagh-o-Bahar, Qissa-e-Meherafroz-o-Dilbar, etc., now, Dastangoi is an evolving art form which has had to adapt and adopt. Even though Urdu remains the primary language, Dastangos are delving into Hindustani as well. Stories have changed and, as Naqvi explains, moved from classical to modern. “Of course, the classical version still thrives, but to reach out to a wider audience who may not be very familiar with theth Urdu, it was important to simplify the language. People are writing their own stories now. Very often works are commissioned to commemorate some recent event, etc,” he says.

Posted by Kamlesh Tripathi

Author, Poet, & Columnist

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