Delhiwale: Portrait of a storyteller

“I have switched three schools since my childhood. In each school I would meet new folks. Some of them became good friends, but such friendships would end with that school. Although good in studies, I was constantly in search of a friend for life. Finally, in 11th standard, I found such a friend — a cigarette.”
So begins Hookup se Mohabbat, a story that Faizan is reading aloud from his mobile to Asad and Hammad. The three friends are huddled about a parked scooter this smoggy evening on a city street. In his 20s, Faizan finished writing the story a day ago, and is expecting an honest critique from his confidants. The language is neither purely English, nor purely Hindi. It is Hinglish—lots of Hindi interspersed with English words. Faizan always types a story’s first draft on his laptop, he says.
Some of us might take this young man in kurta -pajama as a writer, but Faizan sees himself as an oral storyteller. He could as well be a 21st century version of Old Delhi’s dastangoi storytellers who, as the legend goes, would recite their stories on the stone staircase of Jama Masjid. Faizan, too, is from the Walled City—he lives in Gali Dakotan—but his favoured venue for storytelling happens to be YouTube.
Officially, the young man is involved in his father’s “transport business.” His foray into writing began some years ago, when he launched a YouTube channel on business and finance. “The purpose was to create a social media following that I could monetise.” Some months ago, he shut down that niche channel, and started a new one, intending his videos this time to be on general themes, “focusing on relevant topics, which young people usually find boring, but which could be enlivened with good stories.” He first did a bit of homework. “I watched the videos of American YouTubers, carefully studied their storytelling style… how the script must have a catchy start, with some tension in the middle, and how the hero must finally resolve the tension.”
As for his current story, Faizan confesses to inserting “bad words” to make it “relatable to youth.” Is that also the reason that it appears to condone smoking? “No, no, my story has two parts! It ends with the hero quitting the bad habit.” The second part is still to be written, but the storyteller has already finalised its title — My last cigarette.