A Bard world

Danish Husain confesses that poetry is but a mere by-product of his profession as an actor. On the same note, however, he professes passionately that it is one of those little things in life that keep him going.
The talented actor/ poet/ storyteller is part of the ongoing Poetry with Prakriti Festival and will show Chennaiites the worth of verse through his recitation.
Dan, as he is popularly know, who is eagerly awaiting the release of his film Dhobi Ghat, is primarily an actor and it is this profession that introduced him to the joys of poetry. “As a performer, my work involves reading a lot of literature and this had me hooked in no time. I started off reading other people’s poetry, I still do at times, and then I began writing my own.” In the course of his tryst with the written word, Dan’s poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies in India, South Africa and Canada. But ask him what inspires him the most and he draws a complete blank.
“Poetry is just something that comes to you. There is this view that a writer has to be affected by everything that happens around him. But different people are moved by different things. A dog sleeping on the sidewalk could move me more than a cataclysm that has destroyed millions.” Prod him then about the various outlets that poetry enjoys now and he gushes, “The poet of today is not just a person who writes poetry. He is an artiste, a corporate honcho, a beaurocrat, a journalist. A dancer finds poetry through dance, a singer through song, an actor through theatre... defining poetry as something that is strictly told in written format is wrong.”
Poetry is one thing, but when it comes to passion supremo, ‘dastangoi’, an Islamic form of oral storytelling that Dan and his friend Mahmood Farooqui have been seeking to revive, is the word. “It is an ancient art form in which stories are related in archaic Urdu. However, despite the language, it is very effective.
In fact, when we performed in Chennai, a city that is less familiar with Urdu than other metros, the audience response was ecstatic!” In that vein, ask him for his views on the city and he smiles, “Though I have always been here in brief, I have managed to take time out to visit the beach and the famous monuments. It is an organic city with a lot of character and has a literary feel. The audience here is open-minded, supportive and intelligent. They enjoy and appreciate art better than any other audience in India.”
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