Lunch with the BS: Mahmood Farooqui
(Published in the Business Standard, August 24, 2010)
As the most recent chronicler of the Mutiny of 1857 makes the passage from Jamia Milia University to the Saket Mall, he peers out at the current ghadar on the streets. “This city has never stopped being under construction,” he says, “for centuries.”
The tamasha over the Commonwealth Games, the unpreparedness of Delhi and the prevalent corruption are familiar to Mahmood Farooqui: his Besieged: Voices From Delhi 1857 chronicles a similar, if far more historical, upheaval. Unlike conventional histories of the Mutiny, Farooqui’s compilation collects the voices of Vaziran, one of the city’s more influential courtesans, documents the arrests of lunatics (and the rounding up of Bengalis), records a soldiers’ court arraigning corrupt officials and other fascinating minutiae. It is, in its own way, a subaltern history; which is why Farooqui is perversely delighted to be lunching at Brown Sahib, the Anglo-Indian and Bengali cuisine restaurant in Saket’s MGF mall, writes Nilanjana S Roy.
His new BlackBerry rings every three minutes or so. Within weeks of the launch of Besieged, Farooqui’s wife, Anusha Rizvi, hit the headlines because of her excellent debut as director on the Amir Khan-backed film, Peepli Live. Farooqui, co-director of the film, used to either the quiet life of the historian in the library, or the civilised acclaim that greets his dastangoi performances, is handling Bollywood-ishtyle stardom for the first time, and it’s left him a little dazed. “Anusha appeared on Indian Idol so she’s spotted now, recognised,” he says. “But it has its good side. Our paan-wallah has given us extra credit for this month.”
The Dilli he’s written about and the Delhi he knew as a student are both, says Farooqui, in the past. The boy from Gorakhpur won a place in Doon School, and spent his college years at St Stephens’ studying history, and theatre — not the stylised plays that the English Shakespeare Society staged, but incendiary Indian classics like Mahabhoj. “The generation that passed out of college has a homogenous memory of the time — the advent of TV serials, the intelligentsia, the Nehruvian hangover. But that bhadralok world has moved on to big cars, money. And wine.”
LINK for more
Good to see Mahmood’s lesser known work getting some kind of recognition now even if the current limelight is due to Anusha and Peepli Live. He was very critical of Aamir and cursing him few years back and I guess that was the time, the couple were given the run around with script issues etc. In the end all this seem to have paid off as although quirky, he was talented in his own way. We now hear he is soon to open up an acting school for aamir, and I am sure the association will do wonders in stream lining his long struggle.
ReplyDeleteAlways known as a frustrated soul, and in search of something or the other right from school days which then continued in Stephens too.A religious fanatic in school, he was on binge drinking when he came back from Oxford and the Rhodes scholarship after college did not do any good to him. His humble background and expectations after studying in prestigious institutions got him so frustrated with job search that he joined ndtv as a regular reporter on an impulse. Don’t know what transpired later and he had moved to Mumbai and met him at a party with a bottle of booze in hand in a very filmy manner, very much looking a pretentious drinker…but set for bigger things in life.
Wow - thanks for your comments! I found out yesterday that he had collaborated with William Dalrymple on the writing of The Last Moghul, doing the background research for the book. His scholarship made Dilli come alive as a living, breathing entity in that book. Cannot wait for his own take on the Mutiny.
ReplyDeleteAside, it seems that genius and frustration usually go hand in hand, while mediocrity flourishes.
Oh definitely mediocrity flourishes because mediocrity is seen to be safe on the surface. But then on the flip side there are many untold stories where genius and frustration has led to destruction.
ReplyDeleteSince Mahmood has been more than an acquaintance, I know in 1998 his creative genius was flipping over to the other side. But marriage to Anusha may just have been the right guidance he needed.
Great that you enjoyed Mahmood’s research work. There are few brilliant works on Indian history waiting to be noticed and I understand JNU campus is full of these research pieces some of them now turned into books. Fortunately, the net and thereafter the blogosphere is giving them their audience and recognition at a much faster pace.
The net is indeed a blessing in such instances, bringing to notice people who deserve notice. I thought Dalrymple gave due credit to Mr. Mahmood and also mentioned that he was in the process of writing his own book on the time.
ReplyDeleteFor me the most interesting part was how the lines that ran parallel in my head (I am not a history scholar!) were woven into a thread. In isolation I knew of Ghalib, Zafar (and Zauq); but that they coexisted was not entirely clear to me!
LINK
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/lunchbs-mahmood-farooqui/405506/
ReplyDeleteIs that the same piece? I found it on Nilanjana Roy's blog, via Natasha Bhadwar, and it says "published in Business Standard".
ReplyDeleteYes.
ReplyDeletehttp://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/08/13/aamir-khan-on-bollywood-parenting/
Kalita: What are you reading now?
Khan: I’m dipping into one book every now and then. A book on letters and government records of 1857 by Mahmood Farooqui, Anusha’s husband. ["Besieged: Voices From Delhi 1857"]
why are the links not hotlink? or do we have to write the href thing?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Khanabadosh and always a pleasure to read Aamir Khan albeit some repetition on few stuffs.
ReplyDeleteHope he likes Mahmood’s book and takes a fascination for Mahmood and his work and there are few more collaborations in the pipeline. Incidentally Mahmood’s link to Aamir I presume was Prasoon and gulzar's daughter.
Btw KB, any previous encounters with Mahmood ? May be we can find a common link ??
ReplyDeleteAnon - No :) I have no connection with film or literature world.
ReplyDeletePardesi - I saw Udaan and it is a terrific movie. Good story telling and good acting through out.
KB - I think we have to type the href thing to hotlink! :-(
ReplyDeleteI have yet to see Udaan, it will have to be on DVD. Maybe the reading of Mahmood's book will inspire a film on the mutiny. As I was reading the Last Moghul I envisioned a film on the mutiny - rich with heat, dust, intrigue and POETRY!
Just quickly, neither have I read the book Mahmood wrote nor do I have the urge to delve too much into history except, similar to everyone's fav pastime of getting to trace family ancestry off and on. However, I do remember the mutiny part of my history books more vividly due to close proximity to the area named Kakori which formed an important part of the mutiny, and where the train was looted to finance this mutiny and to which the big revolutionaries like azad, bismil and khan were part of. Who can forget the legendary pose of azad circling his moustache in the history books.
ReplyDeleteBut I know for a fact that Mahmood’s book was very popular in JNU and the literary world that cared and he got instant fame in that circle. I believe he had a had a very fresh take on the mutiny of 1857 due to his deep knowledge of Urdu / Persian language and his ability to translate some of the Persian documents from the mutiny records.
Rest later..
Thanks Anon.
ReplyDeleteNot many people know about this guy. There were couple of lines in CBSE history books.
Babu Kunwar Singh
Bumped because of enthusiastic response of the audience :P
ReplyDeleteThanks! :D
ReplyDeleteAnon ji - aap wapas aa jaayein, please tell us some more nuggets of information.
Sorry didn’t see this plus the full weekend spent outdoors.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean Khanabadosh. There is a very small audience for the work Mahmood did earlier or continues to do and even now. We really don’t know how PL is going to play hereafter since Mahmood is pretty eccentric and not known for towing the mainstream line both professionally and personally. This association with Aamir may be shortlived for all we know…as there are two big egos here, though Mahmood’s struggle may have humbled him a bit…
Currently he is catching the fancy to an extent due to aalternative media which differs from mainstream media in content and aesthetic.
I have not spent much time in Delhi since leaving India, but off and on there used to be some chatter about Khushawant Singh taking a fancy to his book and work and praised him in many of his newspaper columns. May be his account in Besieged Voices – Delhi 1857 was very favorable to Sikh community….
I hope sarcasm is not the intention here Pardesi…. but will respond thinking it to be otherwise…since you already know Mahmood helped William Dalrymple with his Urdu translation and Dalrymple returned the favor by directing him towards untapped material on the mutiny of 1857 lying in the national Archives which no one bothered to even look. Mahmood’s book probably will give a daily account of the events in Delhi in 1857 till Bahadur Shah Zafar’s death.
ReplyDeleteAside, though I don’t think he is that popular yet that one wishes to know more about his personal life, but he spent the entire boarding life in school and then a collegian in St Stephen’s as a complete non entity and some sort of a outcast and was hardly noticed apart from doing few street plays here and there which he started in college. Everyone was taken by surprise when he was the one selected for Rhodes scholarship since his academics were strictly avg….probably he was adored in the literary world and best to represent. But getting admission to Stephen’s and then chosen to study in Oxford University was mostly due to his extra curricular activities and hatke outlook in life….for which he is reaping the fruits now ….!!
Anon - I am surprised that you thought I was joking. I was completely serious, and have enjoyed reading everything you have shared here about Mahmood's life.
ReplyDeleteThe footnotes in the Dalrymple book point to the archives and the gems hiding there, including the two daily newspapers that were published at the time - the one in English and the one in Urdu. It is rare to have first-hand accounts of a time from the time.
I have to get my hands on Mahmood's book...
Regret the cynic tone Pardesi since time is a bit of a constraint. You probably know Mahmood and his wife have their own blog Dastangoi http://dastangoi.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteThe couple is plethora of information on arts, history and mostly Muslim voices. This blog has a lot of contributors and this may interest you to an extent.
Further if you or anyone interested in his story form , should try and attend his performances which have now stretched far out to even New York City. The performances can be tracked on the website of following venue and here is a brief list Kala Ghoda festival, Bandra Festival, Mumbai, the Jaipur Literary Festival, the Virasat Festival at Dehradun, performances at Colleges in Delhi under the aegis of the SPIC-MACAY society, the Khuda Bakhsh Library at Patna, the Aligarh Muslim University, Jawahar Lal Nehru Univeristy, the NCPA experimental auditorium at Bombay, the Habitat Centre at Delhi, at Prithvi Theatre Bombay on the invitation of Naseeruddin Shah and his group Motley, shows at Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore on the invitation of the Citizens Foundation of Pakistan, and at New York City at Muslim Voices Festival at the behest of Asia Society and Brooklyn Academy of Music, and numerous other performances at Delhi.
Details of the shows, including press reviews are also available at www.dastangoi.blogspot.com
Forgot to add these performances of Dastangoi is very difficult to describe and they are in chaste Urdu language. but one needn’t be an expert in Urdu language to understand them. It's a cross between a theatre performance and poetry reading and there is a lot of use of expressions and gestures and change in tones of voice which transport you into a realm of fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI will try and delve into Mahmood’s school plays at a later time. Though he did not have many takers since he always did Hindi plays, his one play in urdu 'Oedipus Rex' based on Greek tragedy was a stand out and one of the best productions ever coming out considering the standards schools usually have. The play was applauded with a standing ovation from non other than the then chairperson of NSD, Delhi
ReplyDeleteA negative view on the movie..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.countercurrents.org/upadhyay300810.htm
*Bumped*
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ReplyDelete