Dastaan Live

The Concept Dastaan Live is an exploration of the Indian condition through a multi-arts experience that combines live music with the visual arts, sound & light design to tell the story of New Delhi. With music composed by Anirban Ghosh and Sumant Balakrishnan at its foundation, Dastaan live is driven by visuals and poetry from Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majaz, Nazir and Baba Nagarjuna. We seek to explore new ways to make the show more immersive for audience members and provide a forum to cast light on their own experiences and perspectives on the issues raised during our performance. The Backdrop Throughout the story of India, Delhi has always had a great role to play. Emerging from the rubble of a failed mutiny against a colonial power nearly 250 years ago, a new city was carved out of the wilderness and went on to become the stage for many watershed moments in the history of our young nation. From its infancy as a symbol of European power and progress in the early 1900s, New Delhi came to be a haven for refugees and the seat of government when the country gained its independence. A confluence of a myriad cultures, faiths and traditions, juxtaposed with the aspirational, modernist and consumerist nature of New Delhi is what makes this narrative truly compelling. A tale of a city is incomplete without the characters that shape it. Ordinary people that have lived extraordinary lives. The weak versus the powerful. The haves and the have-nots. Religions pitted against one another. Each person jostling for space in a city that is already filled to the brim. The journey of Delhi thus far hasn’t been an easy one and no one is quite sure of what the road ahead will bring.