Writer Munshi Premchand penned Idgah, a short story about a young Hamid’s tryst with peer pressure, ridicule, and bullying in the 1930s; long before the spotlight was on conversations around children’s mental health. For years, the short story has lived on in the Hindi curriculum textbooks in schools; briefly memorised, rewritten on answer sheets, and soon forgotten, year after year. Grooming Babies, a Mumbai-based enterprise working to contemprise Indian heritage for children, aims to give Idgah a new lease of life through a dastangoi performance titled Eidgah this weekend.

While the 13th century art form and the writer might seem separated by eras, styles and geographies, director Veena Manoj believes that they have more in common than one may think. “We were searching for an art form that will do justice to this beautiful story; since Premchand wrote in Hindi and Urdu, and the dastangoi form of storytelling also has roots in Urdu storytelling, we chose to adapt it for a dastangoi. A dying art form in itself, we felt this would be an apt way to keep it alive in the hearts and minds of children,” she shares.