PERFORMANCES

Based on Ankit Chadha’s years of continuing research on the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Praarthanaa’ is a musical dastan that tries to unravel the mystery of death, as seen by Gandhi. The narrative seamlessly connects the history in oral storytelling to the philosophy in the devotional songs sung during the prayers at Gandhi’s ashrams. The stories range from Gandhi’s experiences of the death of his dear ones, to the tales of personalities whose death influenced Gandhi. The songs, composed by Vedanth Bharadwaj, include poetry by Tulsidas, Narsinh Mehta, Kabir and Surdas among others.

• Woven and narrated by: Ankit Chadha
• Music composed and sung by: Vedanth Bharadwaj
• Acknowledgment: This piece was conceived during Ankit Chadha’s fellowship at the Sabarmati Ashram
• Language: Hindustani

This performance includes stories of Murshid and songs of Mureed, and is a musical narrative on Hazrat Amir Khusrau

This musical narrative explores the relationship between Hazrat Amir Khusrau, the 13th century Sufi poet from India, and his spiritual master Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya. The cultural icon, who represented the fusion of two rich cultures – of Iran, and of Hind, showcased this in both his poetry and music. In this narrative, you listen to how his music brought together the Arabic aalaap, Farsi recitation and Hindustaani ragas. From qawwali and ghazal to the flavour of the Hindavi folk, each song of Khusrau will be contextualized by the story of his relationship with his pir.

• Performed by: Ankit Chadha, Bindhumalini Narayanswamy, Vedanth Bharadwaj and Ajay Kumar Tipanya

A dastangoi presentation on the life, times and works of the phenomenon called Amir Khusrau Dehlavi. The performance goes beyond the celebration of the Khusrau through music, and explores the untouched parts of the cultural icon in a narrative interspersed with Khusrau’s poetry. Meet the courtier of Delhi Sultanate, the poet of the masses, and most importantly the lover of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.

• Language: Urdu
• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

A dastangoi presentation on the life, times and poetry of Urdu shaayar Majaaz Lakhnavi (1911-1955), this narrative introduces the audience to Majaaz, his childhood, fame at AMU, his days in Delhi, his love, and most importantly his aawaargi. The story, told through accounts of the poet’s relatives, friends and acquaintances, will be interspersed with the recitation of Majaaz’s poetry – which is a unique mix of romance and revolution.

• Language: Urdu
• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha and Himanshu Bajpai

A dastangoi presentation about nomadic pastoralists and the settled world, this story follows the trails and trials of a neglected people, a forgotten way of life. Did you know that “khanabadosh” means the one who carries his home (khana) on his shoulders (dosh). Like the herder following the herd, storyteller Ankit Chadha has followed the herders in Gujarat, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan, to bring us their tales of living lightly on this earth. Maldhari Kacchhap Singh is following Bhoori, the buffalo, and faces the brunt of ‘development’. This dastangoi, touching a range of issues from sustainability and coexistence to marginalization, was specially woven for the curated exhibit, “Living Lightly”. It has thereafter been performed across the country and abroad.

• Language: Hindustani
• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

A dastangoi based on Ankit Chadha’s field research of the remote connectivity areas in the Jhabua district of Madhya Pradesh, this story explores the divide in access of the Internet technology. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. There is more fruit in the shampoo of the rich brown fox than there is in the poor dog’s plate. So, what happens when the dog meets the fox at the threshold of the tilismi (magical) world of the internet. We witness the lives of people on both sides of the technology divide.

• Language: Hindi/English/Urdu
• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

This biographical piece on Dara Shikoh was conceived and scripted by Ankit Chadha in collaboration with the Harvard scholar Supriya Gandhi. Largely based on Supriya’s biography in progress, the presentation is an effort to lift away the binary framework through which people have often viewed Dara Shikoh and associated figures like Aurangzeb. The narrative does this by providing a nuanced and multi-faceted view of Dara’s personality and also the complex religious and political landscape of his times.

• Language: Hindi/Urdu
• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

This tale is about the childhood of Amir Hamza and Amar Ayyaar. The narrative revolves around their experiences in a madarsa, where they were sent for education at the tender age of five. Amar, being the naughty kid he is, unleashes a series of pranks on Mullaa, his teacher. Will best friends Hamza and Amar be separated?

• Language: Urdu
• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

In this episode from Tilism-e-hoshruba (the magical land that enchants your senses), Aazar, a magician, is sent by Afrasiyab, the king of the tilism, to arrest Amar Ayyaar (the master trickster). What follows is a classic series of trickery.

• Language: Urdu

Lauh-e-Tilism is a tablet that comes into existence with the tilism (magical land). It stores all the secrets of the tilism, including the name of Tilism Kusha (the one who will break the tilism). Amar Ayyaar (the king of tricksters) imprisons Mallika Hairat (the Queen) in his zambeel. Then, he impersonates her to force Afrasiyaab (the Emperor of Tilism-e-Hoshruba) to tell him the secret of where the Lauh-e-Tilism is. What follows is a hilarious trickery by Amar’s disciple, Barq Firangi.

This adaptation of a modern folk tale about an ant in a corporate jungle could be anybody’s story. How wild is your job? Find out.

• Acknowledgement: Winner of Best Production, Best Script, Short + Sweet Theatre Festival, Delhi 2013
• Language: Hindi/Urdu/English

This Dastangoi presentation on the life and times of Saadat Hasan Manto borrows quotes from people who worked with Manto, were friends or related to him, or witnessed the man he was. The narrative rotates from third person to first person and back to third person accounts of the life of the great Urdu short story writer. Right from the mischievous boy he was in his childhood to his rebellious ways during the peak of his career, Manto is showcased as a person who reflects every possible shade a human being can have.

• Performance by: Darain Shahidi and Ankit Chadha

The Dastan-e-Sedition is an allegorical take on contemporary India. It is framed around a sedition case that was conducted against Dr Binayak Sen, the award-winning doctor and public health activist of Raipur. It questions our notions of development and progress through the character of Amar, a renowned trickster. Amar is also witness to the farcical trial of the doctor. Amar and his disciple decide to make a plan to rescue the doctor.

• Performance by: Himanshu Bajpai and Ankit Chadha

An Adaptation from the 1943 classic The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery for children (and adults). The author has woven a poetic tale from his aviation experiences in the Sahara Desert, where he meets a young prince, who has fallen to Earth from a tiny asteroid. Commenting on the strange grown-ups and their ways, the story moves to a stage where the Little Prince meets a fox and realizes the meaning of love.

• Performance by: Poonam Girdhani and Ankit Chadha

A dastan based on Lewis Carroll’s world famous classics ‘Alice’s adventures in Wonderland’, and ‘Through the Looking Glass’. The story starts with Alice entering the fantasy land and discovering the world through the looking glass. After her size changes multiple times, Alice begins her journey on the chessboard to become a queen.

This narrative celebrates the legend of Abdur Rahim Khan-i- Khanan (1556-1627), a courtier during the reign of Akbar, whose Hindi couplets made him immortal. Rahim, apart from being a linguist, statesman and soldier, was a great patron of arts and literature. Tales from both the oral and written tradition, interspersed with songs sung to folk and contemporary compositions, this presentation rediscovers the humanitarian from the Mughal era.

• Woven and narrated by: Ankit Chadha
• Contemporary compositions, vocals and guitar: Harpreet

Daughter: Where does Hunger stay?

Mother: Hunger stays with us, forever.

Daughter: But, didn’t you say, it’s friends who stay with us forever? Is Hunger our friend, mother?

Mother: No, darling! Hunger is a song, which we sing for the friends who got separated to survive.

~ Anshu Malviy

– An Indian folk tale about how Hunger stays with the hungry

– An ode to food (Rotiyaan) by a poet of the masses, Nazeer

a) to hearth, to oven, to gas fire – the most special light that there is

b) to food that extinguishes the fire of hunger

c) to God, who we might forget, if there was no hunger

– A folktale about hunger is universal: from prince to pauper

– A tale from Mahabharata, the Akshaya Paatra:

– Expression of gratitude to and a praise of the farmer, the producer of food

• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

Ankit’s mother passed on to him the prayer to the Mother Goddess when he was 14. For the last 15 years, he has been doing the paath of Devi Mahatmaya, which is a part of the Markandeya Puraana. This katha vaachan (in Hindi) will include recitation of a few episodes from Durga Saptashati (700 verses). This storytelling of battles between Shakti (good) and evil forces is Ankit’s offering to the Glory of the Goddess.

This dastangoi presentation is based on the 1961 children’s classic ‘Phantom Tollbooth’. Eleven year old Milo is bored. Maths is dull and words are tedious. One afternoon Milo returns from school to what looks like another long afternoon. Instead he finds a tollbooth. With an instruction manual, Milo sets off on his toy car to magical lands. In Alfaz Nagar and Numberabad, Milo finds two kings – brothers who can’t agree on anything. Their sisters Rhyme and Reason live in exile far away and their kingdoms are deeply troubled. Can Milo face the ghosts in the Mountains of Darkness and bring peace back to the kingdoms that lie beyond the tollbooth?

• Language: Hindustani

This dastangoi presentation is an allegorical tale about a fantasy land where mobile is the most dominant technology. The story is a satirical take on the mobile ecosystem in India, and touches every part of it – the handset makers, the carriers/operators, the app and content developers, and of course, the mobile user who sits at the centre of it. Will he be hassled or empowered? 15 minutes Hindi/Urdu Ankit Chadha

The elite who celebrate Urdu as a language of Ghalib’s classical poetry see it as a dying language. But Urdu also has a lesser-acknowledged popular culture, which has kept it alive among the masses. This dastangoi is about these popular forms that continue to thrive in the underbelly of classical Urdu. Urduwallas disdain the literature of the bazaar, incorrect talaffuz and inability to read the script. Yet, Urdu, like a trickster, is entering the English-speaking cultural spaces of cinema and social media. Should the ‘Urdu-wallas’ restrict their language to their homes to preserve a dying tahzeeb or liberate it so that it plays with the street kids to get dirty but sturdier for the future?

• Woven and performed by: Ankit Chadha

• Language: Urdu
• Performance by: Ankit Chadha

• Language: Urdu
• Performance by: Ankit Chadha

• Language: Hindustani
• Performance by: Ankit Chadha