Daastaan Goi

or, storytelling. This is an ancient art form that has very few takers these days. The leading theatre group in the town did a modest attempt to revive the dying art. For theatre lovers like me, this was an opportunity not to be missed.

There were three main characters in the play. Each of them took turns in telling a story. One was about a sculptor girl from the hills of Sikkim (eastern Himalayas), another was about a shepard from the hills of Himachal (north-west Himalayas). But it was the third one (actually first story told in the play) about Arabian nights that interested me the most. A young actor told the story of Arabian nights. There was this king whose queen deserted him. In anguish, he vowed to take it out on all the young women in the country. Every night, he used to marry a young girl, spend the first night and then kill her in the morning. This used to go on and on, night after night. The minister's young daughter was beautiful and smart. She couldn't take the king's brutality and vowed to put an end to it. Next night, she married the king. Once the king came into the room and settled down, she started telling him a very interesting story. Just before dawn, she left the story at a very interesting point and told the king that if he wants to know what happened next, he will have to wait for another night. The king was so captivated by the story that he didnt have a choice. The young queen lived to see another day. Same thing happened the next night and then the night after that. Every morning, she used to cook up the stories and every night she used to tell the story to the king. This went on for 1000 nights. On 1001st night, fatigued of all the story making and story telling, the queen collapsed in front of the king. By now, the king was a changed man and was also in love with the new queen.
I've earlier heard about Arabian nights but never knew the story behind the Arabian nights series.

Another interesting thing was darvesh. In olden days, fakir used to travel like nomads from one city to another and tell stories to local people. They always had some eatables in their bag that they used to distribute to the audience. Legend has it that as long as there were stories, there were eatables in the bag. These eatables were called darvesh. When the first story was over, a couple of men dressed in traditional attire actually came down to the audience with darvesh. This I thought was a very thoughtful gesture.

An evening well spent. The pizza that followed sucked!