Khutoot-e-Niswa'n is a performative reading of letters women wrote to each other. Fouzia shares a rare collection of women’s letters from Old Delhi, rediscovered through her dedicated research. These letters, filled with intimate reflections, offer rare insights into the everyday lives and inner worlds of women from times bygone. 

In Saba Hasan’s practice especially in works that have embedded Urdu texts and tattered bits of old family manuscripts, like canvases and the boxes with half burnt bits of paper, she recounts that she has used old aging manuscripts like notes and letters that were penned and shared by her aunts. She says: “I also used my mother’s letters and transcripts of her translations of authors like Mahasweta Devi and some feminist Urdu writing extracted from Rashida Jahan and Ismat Chughtai. The book I have used in my work, Book in a Smashed Box is the feminist Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai’s book titled Ziddi, so there has been text as we know it in my work, in and outside of book sculptures, but now even that has disappeared.”

The performative reading by Fouzia is then an invocation of the letters and written notes exchanged between women from different mise-en-scene, a sort of archive that comes alive in her indomitable style, complete with the idiosyncrasies. Within fragmentation of these bits of papers, Saba is assuming a novel style of abstraction. However, the ever desiring viewer of Saba’s works transforms as the audience in this program, as they finally finds themselves privy to the world of lettered exchanges written by women to each other.

This programme is curated by Neha Tickoo

About the Artist: FOUZIA DASTANGO

Widely recognized and felicitated as “India’s First Woman Dastangoi Artist”, Fouzia is crafting narratives and captivating audience for over two decades. She has not only broken into the male-only bastion of storytelling, but is striving every single day to revive the 13th century dying art of oral Urdu storytelling, Dastangoi, in the country.

Fouzia has performed over 500 shows all over India and internationally. She initially specialized in narrating stories and enthralling her audience with her voice and story – key tools she plays by, and no audio-visual support, nor music to express the complexities of human emotions and transport her audience to the world of stories of imminent writers like Ashraf Subohi Dehelvi, Ismat Chugtai, Intizar Hussain and others. These stories touch hearts of children, young and old alike – renditions include: Dastan of Ghummi Kebabi from lanes of Old Delhi, to the sensitive feminist writing of Ismat Chugati’s Nanhi ki Nani. From mental health to communal harmony to feminism, Fouzia has mastered the art of picking the right stories and performing them for her audience in a way that strikes the right chords. Her other performances includes integrating melodious renditions to cover increasingly diverse topics, such as: Dastaan-e-Khusro; Dastan-e-Radha Krishan; Dastan-e-Sahir; Dastan-e-Meena Kumari; Dastan-e-Kabir; Dastan-e-Ram; Dastan-e-Mahabharata and Dastan-e-Ghalib, Dastan-e-Gurudutt, among many others. In 2017, Fouzia opened A. R Rahman’s concert ‘The Sufi Route’ 2017. 

Fouzia has been able to leverage storytelling to not just perform stories for various audience – she has immersed herself to identify the issues that are impacting our society and doing shows, sessions, and melodious renditions to help address these. Some of her work in this area includes: Safe Motherhood – an initiative where all women and girls realize their right to quality health and well-being; Dastan-e-Bhanwari Devi – reminding us of the ghastly gangrape and the story of strength which is relevant even after 30 years. As an artist, Fouzia is using her voice and skills to share stories Better India through her show, “Ummeed Unlimited”.

She has developed and delivered workshops with schools and colleges to promote social issues like mental health and gender equality through the medium of storytelling. Most recently, Fouzia was involved with the University of Sheffield, UK, to help revive Rekhtigoi language. She was also recognized among the SheThePeople: 40 Over 40 in the year 2020, which celebrates women over forty who have achieved, reinvented themselves and claimed their space under the spotlight. In 2019, Fouzia was awarded REX-Karmaveer-Global-Fellowship as well as Karamveer Chakra Award, a civilian honour given by the International Confederation of NGOs (iCONGO) in partnership with United Nations. Fouzia has also been felicitated by the Ghalib Academy in Delhi in 2022. In 2018, Fouzia features on the cover of Women’s Day Special edition of HT Brunch.