Mahmood Farooqui is an Indian writer, performer and director. He specializes in a type of story-telling known as '' Dastangoi''. Farooqui along with his uncle Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, noted

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

poet and literary critic, revived Dastangoi, the ancient art of Urdu story telling. He was awarded the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar in 2010 for it. His book ''Besieged: voices from Delhi 1857'' was awarded the Ramnath Goenka for the best Non-fiction book of the year. This book is a translation of mutiny papers providing a glimpse into the lives of ordinary people who found themselves stuck during the revolt of 1857. He was also a researcher for '' The Last Mughal'', a book by William Dalrymple. In August 2016 he was found guilty of rape by a lower court, but in September 2017 he was acquitted by the Delhi High Court. The High Court judgment was later upheld by the

Supreme Court In most legal jurisdictions, a supreme court, also known as a court of last resort, apex court, high (or final) court of appeal, and court of final appeal, is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

Education

Farooqui completed his schooling from The Doon School and went on to read history at St. Stephen's College, Delhi. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to read history at St. Peter's College,

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Dastangoi

Farooqui began reinventing Dastangoi, the 16th-century Urdu oral storytelling art form, in 2005. Since then, he has performed thousands of shows across the world. Apart from bringing alive the old epic of Dastan-e-Amir Hamza, he has innovated Dastangoi by using it as a medium to tell modern tales. Some of his adaptations include: *A retelling of Vijaydan Detha's Rajasthani folktale, Chouboli; *An allegorical take on the trial and incarceration of communist activist Dr. Binayak Sen; *A presentation on the life and times of communist ideologue and novelist Saadat Hasan Manto; *An adaptation of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

's classics 'Alice's adventures in Wonderland', and 'Through the Looking Glass'; *A collage based on AK Ramanujan's essay, '300 Ramayanas'; *A collage of stories on the

partition of India The partition of India in 1947 was the division of British India into two independent dominion states, the Dominion of India, Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. The Union of India is today the Republic of India, and the Dominion of Paki ...

; *His latest work is Dastan-e-Karan Az Mahabharata, a retelling of the life of Karna based on Urdu, Persian, Hindi, and Sanskrit sources. Farooqui has, over the years, built a team of dastangos trained by him, including Ankit Chadha, Darain Shahidi, Poonam Girdhani and Himanshu Bajpai.

Books

His publications include the award-winning ''Besieged: Voices from Delhi,1857'', ''Habib Tanvir: Memoirs'', a translation of theatre-director Habib Tanvir's memoirs from Urdu with notes and an introduction, ''Dastangoi'', an introduction to the art of datangoi, and ''A Requiem for Pakistan: The world of Intizar Husain'', a personal exploration of the literary and biographical world of Intizar Husain and brief history of modern Urdu Literary Culture.

Personal life

Farooqui is married to film director and screenwriter Anusha Rizvi, who directed the 2010 Indian satirical comedy film Peepli Live which explores the topic of " farmer suicides". He is a nephew of

poet and literary critic Shamsur Rahman Faruqi.

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Farooqui, Mahmood Living people 21st-century Indian Muslims Film directors from Uttar Pradesh Hindi-language film directors The Doon School alumni Alumni of St Peter's College, Oxford Indian Rhodes Scholars Indian prisoners and detainees Year of birth missing (living people)