Swarna Jayanti

Sangeet Natak Akademi presents Putul Yatra, an event focused on puppet theatre in India through a festival, discussions, and an exhibition of puppets. Coinciding as it does with the Golden Jubilee celebrations of the formation of the Akademi, we celebrate the birth centenary of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay (1903-1988) and dedicate the event to her.

The exhibition, comprising about two hundred puppets of traditional forms from the large collection of the Akademi, includes the string puppets from Assam, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Orissa and Rajasthan; puppets manipulated by both rods and strings from Karnataka and Tamil Nadu; rod puppets from Orissa and West Bengal; glove puppets of Kerala and Orissa; and shadow puppets from Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. A number of puppets loaned by modern practitioners of the art who are participating in the festival from different states are also exhibited.

The puppets were largely collected in early 1970s at the time of Dr Suresh Awasthi, the then Secretary of the Akademi. His team of enthusiastic officers — Jiwan Pani, whose work entailed surveying and documenting traditional performance forms, Govind Vidyarthi, S.C. Bansal, R.S. Malhotra, H.L. Veer and O.K. Sharma — went around the country collecting, recording and taking photographs and making films of the puppet forms.

What connects these puppet forms across the country? Is it the structure of performance, the themes of the plays, the use of narrative, the moral messages, the ritual context, the manipulation techniques, the crafting of puppets, the social and economic context of hereditary performers, their place in societal hierarchy or is it the underlying aesthetic principles they share with other performance and visual traditions of their regions? In other words, do they share the same world view and the concomitant sense and feeling of time and space?

A casual glance is enough to convince us of the Natya tradition forming the presentations of the modest puppet theatre. The preliminaries of a performance, the Sutradhara and the Vidushak under different names and garbs, the typology of characters and roles, the interweaving of text, song, rhythm and movement, the evocation of Rasa and Bhava connect them to the traditional theatre forms of their respective regions. The connection of different styles of Yakshagana of Karnataka with the string puppet theatre of the same districts, Kathakali with Pavakathakali glove puppets, Bhaona with the string puppets of Assam and Jatra with the rod puppets of West Bengal, comes to mind. The strong visual impression of similar costumes, headgears, jewellery, facial make-up and crafting and painting of face and eyes makes one think of some of the puppet traditions as miniature theatre performances. However, comparative studies of texts, music and movement are required to understand the relationship and distinctness in depth.

If we were to identify one distinct element in Indian puppetry, it is the sense of rhythm and dance that is inherent in the puppet. Puppeteers with ankle bells dancing backstage with the dancing puppets in front, to the beat of the percussion are common to several styles. Another connection is between the appearance of the puppet and the visual art tradition of the region. The treatment of eyes in the Lepakshi temple murals and the shadow puppets of Karnataka, the Gopalila puppets and Patachitras of Orissa, the Danger Putul puppets and the Patas of West Bengal are some examples.

The traditional puppet plays revolve round the stories from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Srimadbhagvat and other Puranas in their regional variations and tales of local gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines. The magical world of puppets transports you to a mythical time which stands still. It is in the stillness of eternal time that the narratives are enacted. The known stories with no surprise endings and no complicated props recharge ancient memories of the community and convey significant and symbolic messages at various levels of understanding. The puppeteer is the conveyer and interpreter of these messages. He can also bring down his audience to earth — to the time now — with his comments on the contemporary scene.

Similar to the situation in the visual arts, theatre and literature, puppetry has also been exposed to the trends prevailing in the rest of the world. During the last fifty years, a large number of exchanges of puppeteers and puppet groups have taken place. As a result, a new kind of puppetry, amalgamating various forms has emerged from the encounter. There is now a considerable body of experimental work, some interacting with the traditional forms and others, with contemporary theatre. Some of the puppets created by such puppeteers participating in the festival are on display.

The puppet has been called a mask through which the nuances of emotions and mundane realities of life can be suggested. Threatened, as it is, by technology and mass media, this fragile art needs our nurture and support for it to remain a part of our imaginative experience.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay was influenced by both Rabindranath Tagore and Gandhiji. She said, "Tagore felt that personality can be built through music; Gandhiji felt personality is built up through craft — the use of hands." An active participant in the freedom movement, she ensured active involvement of women in the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 and later in the historic Quit India Movement of 1942. After independence in 1947, Kamaladevi grappled with the problems arising out of the partition of the country. She pioneered the cooperative movement, and later chose to devote her time and attention to the crafts and theatre of the rural areas and to the concerns of craftsmen and performers.