Dastan Tilism-e-Hoshruba is a classic Dastangoi performance, narrating one of the stories from the most extensive Urdu literature to exist: Tilism-e-Hoshruba, also known as Dastan-e-Ameer Hamza.

Dastangoi as a performing art is said to have originated in the Persian world and in Indian subcontinent it arrived in around 12-13th Century and eventually became a popular narrative performing art form. It was at its peak during 18th and 19th Century. Its popularity started declining in the early 20th Century and ultimately it went completely extinct until mid-2000s when it was revived, thanks to the hard work and resilience of Janab Shamsur-Rehman Farooqui and his companions.

In these stories, there is a group of Aiyaars or tricksters led by Amar Aiyaar and on the other hand there's an army of magicians, under their king, Afraasiyab. Afrasiyaab keeps sending his magicians to create magical places to trap the Aiyaars and the ensuing battle between the Magician and tricksters is what forms an entertaining mix of magic, fantasy narrated, with some poetry. The language is Urdu-Hindi mix, along with some other Indian languages and accents spoken by various characters.

Dastango Kafeel Jafri will be performing one such episode from the epic.

About the Performer:

Kafeel Jafri, is a Lucknowi based in Bangalore. He is a trained theatre artist, Dastango/storyteller and trainer. As an actor he has done about 20 plays with various theatre groups in Bangalore, 1 feature film and numerous ad films and short films.

Kafeel specialises in the theatrical storytelling form in Urdu Dastangoi. Along with performing classical Dastans, he has also written and performed new Dastans (Dastan-e-Seetayana, Dastan-e-Maseeha and Dastan Anekta mein Ekta ki) and shows around life and works of famous Urdu literature personalities like Ghalib, Faiz and Manto.

He also utilises his learnings in Drama and Storytelling to design and facilitate workshops around- Diversity and Inclusion, Storytelling and Sales- in various organisations across the country.