Ainee Farooqui

Ainee Farooqui is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and one of India's most prominent female dastangos. She learned the art of Dastangoi under the tutelage of Mahmood Farooqui -- a pupil relationship that is also familial, as Mahmood is a relative -- and began performing in 2014 as one of the youngest female dastangos in the country. She has performed more than fifty Dastangoi shows at literary and cultural events across India. Her academic research focuses on education and nationalism in post-independence India; she presented 'Reading the State's Discourse on Education and Nationalism: Dominant Themes and Ideas, Contradictions and Tensions (1950-1980)' at the 79th Session of India History Congress, 2019, for which she received the Professor Papiya Ghosh Memorial Prize for best paper in Contemporary Indian History. She also received the Sahapedia-UNESCO Fellowship in Intangible Forms of Heritage.

Ainee Farooqui's entry into Dastangoi came through family and academic proximity: Mahmood Farooqui, who revived the art form in 2005 with his uncle S.R. Faruqi, is a relative. She trained under him and began performing in 2014. Her path exemplifies the community of scholars, historians and cultural activists that has sustained the Dastangoi revival -- people for whom the art form is simultaneously an artistic practice and an engagement with Urdu's literary heritage and India's social history. Her Lady Shri Ram College faculty role gives her a platform to introduce students to Dastangoi as a living art form, extending its reach beyond dedicated literary and cultural audiences.

Ainee Farooqui practises Dastangoi as both an art form and as an educational instrument -- consistent with her framing of it as a medium through which History can 'break out of classrooms and reach a wider audience.' Her performance approach follows the classical Dastangoi format of two narrators seated opposite each other, using voice, prose rhythm and Urdu poetic flourishes to conjure characters and worlds. She is considered one of the most prolific and multidimensional practitioners of the contemporary form, with a repertoire spanning classical Dastans (Dastan-e-Amir Hamza tradition), Lewis Carroll adaptations and history-based storytelling. She performs regularly with Nusrat Ansari.