What do a 13th century Urdu oral storytelling art form, a storyteller, a bard, an author, and a journalist have in common? Well, when it comes to Himanshu Bajpai, he is an embodiment of each of these facets and more. Walking on the footsteps of the famous Dastangoi legend Ankit Chadda, this celebrity strives towards syncretism in contemporary times.
The first Dastangoi storyteller from Lucknow, Himanshu Bajpai has immersed himself in the richness of Urdu language and one who worships at the altar of culture steeped in the elegance and classiness and has surrendered to the higher consciousness of love in its myriad forms.
Books en Beyond hosted an interaction with this storyteller with a difference in the online platform of Zoom Cloud Meetings, where the Founder Director, Ms Shweta Aggarwal skillfully guided both the interview and the interviewee into the hearts of the audience. The author speaks of the history of Urdu, the greatest bards or shayars who lived only to love and write, and sometimes write and love, right from Mir Taki Mir to Harvansh Rai Bachchan, to Bashir Ahmed and then to Javed Akhtar, and others interim. This colourful personality engaged the audience from his very first words and never let them go. The elegiac of Urdu was once more visible to people who soon realized that the culture and history that birthed the Urdu language must be kept alive, for it is an inseparable part of what makes India the most unique nation in all of the world.
Richly interspersed with Urdu couplets that continue to make sense centuries after they were penned, this poet enthralled the audience with his persona and his wit. Come, fall in love with an era shown to us by this Dastangoi exponent, Himanshu Bajpai.
