Mahmood Farooqui

Mahmood Farooqui, born on 13th March 1978 (age 38) is an Indian artist, writer, and director. Born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, he completed his schooling at The Doon School and took up History in St Stephen’s College, Delhi. He was later awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study History at St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford. His writing specialty lies in a type of story-telling called Dastangoi which was a 16th century Urdu story-telling art form that was recently revived and has had a new life breathed into it by him in 2005.

He has used Dastangoi as a means to tell contemporary tales. Some of his most famous shows include adaptations of Lewis Carol’s most famous works ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking Glass.’ In the process, he has over the span of years built a team of das tangos who have been personally trained by him in this lost art form, including AnkitChadha, DarainShahidi, PoonamGirdhani and Himanshu Bajpai. His has published the award-winning, ‘Beseiged: Voices from Delhi, 1857’ which represents the views of those caught in the siege of Delhi during the Indian uprising of 1857, translated HabibTanvir’s Memoirs and also wrote Dastangoi, a collection of episodes performed by him and his team all over the world.

He has also done research work for ‘White Mughals,’ a book by William Dalrymple. MahmoodFarooqui is married to AnushaRizvi, film director, and screen director who directed the 2010 satirical comedy, ‘Peepli Live’ which focused mainly on farmer suicides. He also worked as the co-director of the movie. On 21st June 2015, Farooqui was arrested by the Delhi Police on the charges of allegedly raping a 35-year-old US research scholar at his SukhdevVihar residence on 28th March 2015.

The e-mail thread between him and the victim after she fled back to the US after the incident tightened the noose around his neck. It was also a breakthrough for Indian law after the amendment in 2013, Despite his plea of innocence, his wife’s blatant refusal of the allegation and the repeated questioning of his friends and relatives as to how a man as educated and sophisticated as Farooqui could commit such a disgusting crime, the court found him guilty. He was finally given a seven year imprisonment sentence on the 4th of August 2016, ending ayear long trial that began on 9th September, 2015.