A contemporary dastaan of Shrilal Shukla's Raag-Darbari regales Delhi audience

Writer, performer and director Mahmood Farooqui, who has been instrumental in reviving the

dastangoi

(16th-century

Urdu

art of storytelling) tradition, recently presented a contemporary adaptation of Dastaan-e-Raag-Darbari, an adaptation of Shrilal Shukla’s Sahitya Akademy Award winning 1968 novel of the same name. The audience gathered at

Kamani Auditorium

listened in rapt attention as dastango, including Farooqui and Darain Shahid, presented the satire on the politics and society of the time imagined through a fictional village of Shivpalganj. The

dastan

gripped the audience as it included satirical poems and thoughts by Nagarjun, Kedarnath Singh, Plato and Niccolo Machiavelli. among others. The brutally honest satire with deadpan humour on the socio-political state of the society exposes the nexus between the corrupt officials and the flawed education system and holds relevant even in the 21st century. It was presented as part of the nine-day long Panna Bharat Ram Theatre Festival.