The Department of Urdu, School of Humanities organised a mesmerizing event of old art of storytelling named “Daastan Hijraton Ki” by Mr. Jawaid Danish from Canada on 11th April 2017 in the Auditorium, School of Humanities. Prof. Panchanan Mohanty, Dean, School of Humanities welcomed the Guest and the audience. The introduction of the Artist and the presentation was given by Dr Zahidul Haque, Assistant Professor in the Department of Urdu.
Mr. Danish is a person of Indian origin and living in Toronto, Canada for last 30 years. He belongs to the city of joy i.e Kolkata but his ancestral origin is Lucknow. He has been a student of the Aligarh Muslim University. After his studies for a short time he associated with the All India Radio, Delhi and Calcutta. Later he moved to Canada and this became the turning point in his life. The migration after migration, internal and external, in his life gave him a different experience which he later penned in his drama collection Hijrat Ke tamashey (the odds of migration).
Daastan Hijraton Ki is a confluence of the old art of storytelling and the monologue of drama. It is a fine blend of the old and the new art. In this presentation, the characters are from different walks of life ranging from the taxi driver to the educated elite class of the society. This is a narration of the persons who in the desire of getting a good life in the developed countries, migrate from their mother land. They get everything in life but the sense of loss of their culture, family, relatives and all makes their life totally different. In this whole affair the y are at a threshold where they don’t want to leave the old customs and traditions and accept the new things as a whole.
Daastan Hijraton Ki is a multifaceted story narrated by Mr Jawaid Danish having characters from North to South and East to West. The local dialects used in this presentation is a beauty in general the presentation of this is to be appreciated in particular.
Jawaid Danish is a playwright, poet and daastango. He is author of 12 Books. He has been recipient of the prestigious Ghalib Award, New Delhi for the year 2016, Sadaf International Award 2016, Doha-Qatar, the Civic Arts Award, Canada and Shiromani Sahitya Award – India, Lucknow to name a few. He has off late written and produced first Urdu Tele Film “Bada Shayer Chota Aadmi” with local talents in Canada. He is the First and only Daastango of Canada.
His published works include the collection of plays named Hijrat ke Tamashe which bagged Writer of the Year award for him, this book has also been translated in Bangla. The Omni TV 1 of Toronto produced 13 episode serial in Urdu and later in English on the plays of this collection. One M. Phil research work on the diasporic plays of Jawaid Danish has been carried out in the University of Delhi. He has a book of Plays named “Chalees Baba Aik chor” in Urdu on the migrants from India and so far it is the only book on this particular topic.
He has also done some translations from the African Literature which he named “Kale Jismon ki riyazat” and the translation from the Palestinian – Israeli Literature named as “Aik Baap ki Aulad”.
He has written some travelogues like “Awargi” and the travelogue of Europe and America named as “Mazeed Awargi”. His recently published travelogue of Japan and Far East in Hindi is Aik aur Awargi.
The event was attended by a large number of students, faculty members and people from outside of the university. The UPE Phase II of the University of Hyderabad had sponsored the event.