LAHORE: The Walled City of Lahore Authority (WCLA) will be starting Dastan Goi (storytelling) at the Royal Kitchens in Lahore Fort from November 1, 2019, where the first story to be narrated will be of Ameer Khusro, Pakistan Today has learnt.
It was further learnt that WCLA would hold these storytelling sessions every month and have released a calendar of events from where the public can check upcoming events.
The narration of Ameer Khusro’s story will be followed by the recitation of his poetry and qawalis by Badar Khan, a storyteller who has performed in India and several other countries of the world.
While talking about the revival of storytelling Badar Khan said, “This was an art which was at its zenith during the Mughal rule. Travelers and learned persons used to narrate the stories of other places to the people and sometimes the stories were so interesting that they went on for several days and nights. This is an art of narrating the story in a manner that people do not get bored of it. Later in the history this art got lost in Pakistan but in India it is still alive. I think WCLA has taken up a great initiative of reviving this dying art.”
“This art was from the walled city and people used to have ‘bethaks’ (gatherings) outside their houses, shops or open spaces where travellers from other regions would come to Lahore and narrate their stories and experiences. Huzoori Bagh was a hub of storytellers till a few decades ago when it was opened for public. With the closure of Huzoori Bagh under security reasons for the public the storytellers also moved away. I have seen myself people spending the entire night listening to the stories of other people, and I think it was a good way of learning,” Badar added.
WCLA Deputy Director Media and Marketing Tania Qureshi said, “ This year to begin with Dastan Goi we have chosen the topic of Ameer Khusro. Ameer Khusro lived from 1253 – 1325 and had matchless merit of being a soldier, courtier, Sufi, poet, litterateur, and music maestro all at the same time. We need to tell our people and the younger generation about such heroes. Ameer Khusro was an iconic figure in the cultural history of South Asia and was a spiritual disciple of Nizamuddin Auliya of Delhi, India. Ameer Khusro is the one who is known as the father of qawwali as he introduced it developed khayal, tarana and qaul. Also, he invented raags, tabla and sitar.”
WCLA Marketing Director Asif Zaheer while talking to Pakistan Today said, “WCLA aims to revive the tangible and intangible culture of the old Lahore and organising these storytelling sessions is one small step towards it. People are still not familiar with the concept of storytelling and especially the younger generation is alien to it because they are in the age of technology. We have held several Dastan Goi events last year and this year too we plan to hold it every month on a different topic”.
“We have a good response from the public and I hope more and more people would join in to make the revival of lost culture possible,” Asif Zaheer concluded.
