KARACHI: In a book about some quirky, old pre-independence Delhites, when the distinguished oral storyteller Mir Baqar Ali (1850-1928) is asked why he doesn’t practise his art anymore, he replies, “The living don’t attach importance to it, should I go to graveyards to tell stories? And why should the living care? No one is familiar with the Urdu language [the way they used to] and look down upon the past. They don’t think people from the past were humans. Life’s philosophy has changed.” Doesn’t the complaint sound true even in the second decade of the 21st century?

Thankfully, a group of the National Academy of Performing Arts’ (Napa) graduates are trying to keep the art of oral storytelling alive. Nazrul Hasan, Fawad Khan and Meesam Naqvi are now Napa’s prominent former students who have taught at the institute as well. They have been performing on stage and in TV and films for more than a decade. So when they engage in the art of dastangoi (oral storytelling), they never disappoint. Their performance on Friday evening at the academy was worthy of applause. The only difference was that this time around they displayed their talent in an open space where until recently a canopy made of concrete stood. It did have its tiny drawbacks related to acoustics (and non-stop coming and going of members of the electronic media), but on the whole it didn’t affect their effort.

Two pieces were performed on Friday; the first from Dastan-i-Tilism-i-Hoshruba and the second called Haveli from Mushtaq Yousufi’s book Aab-i-Gumm. They spent more time on the latter which is understandable — compared to the former, it is less old when it comes to chronology and relatable to modern-day audiences having the right amount of humour. Yousufi sahib’s rib-tickling one-liners and inimitable style of tackling significant issues with feathery touches (such as migration) has no parallels. The attendees liked it.

The first shorter act enabled the audience to acknowledge that the three artists take both language and literature seriously. Nazr and Fawad performed the first and Meesam joined them for the second piece. It was fun.

The three-day run of the show will conclude on Sunday (today).

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2022