BENGALURU: Playing with dolls is no child’s play. Just ask puppeteers in the city, who are busy gearing up with initiatives to celebrate World Puppetry Day (March 21). For instance, Anupama Hoskere, director of Dhaatu Puppets – a non-profit organisation which promotes puppetry – says it’s impossible for her to not do anything on the occasion. This time, however, her students are doing the shows. “We wanted to do things differently. So we will give the audience a tour of the backstage to show them how the magic is done,” says Hoskere. Considering the rising number of the cases, Hoskere assures, “We will have a select few invite-only audience members while also telecasting the event live on our Facebook page.”
Although dance and music events have live audiences again, puppetry is still going to take some time since the audience for such shows is usually children and families, feels Hoskere. “It will take almost three years for things to come back to normal for us. All our online initiatives are to remind audiences about this art form,” she says, adding that Dhaatu is planning to come back to live shows post Ugadi.
According to her, the art form could benefit from more people taking an interest in it. “The number of youngsters taking an interest in it is less because there is so much to do from making your own dolls to creating characters,” says Hoskere, who has a Masters in engineering. To bridge this gap, Dhaatu Puppets is incorporating modern-day storytelling techniques with puppets. The upcoming event too will have her students do shows with hand puppets, where they are going to speak about saving the environment through a story from the Mahabharatha.
Theatre personality S Surendranath says the art form also has to deal with a lack of financial support. “Modern puppetry is about 10 years old and has received decent exposure. But traditional puppetry needs more of a push. There is hardly any financial support from the government,” he says, as he suggests a platform to support the art form and its many artistes. Surendranath’s puppet shows – Circle of Life and Old Man and the Sea – are lined up at Ranga Shankara on March 16 and 17, and March 21, respectively. According to him, “The best part of puppetry, especially the shows for children, is that the audience can
relate to the character through their actions.”
Shinde Hanumantha Rao echoes a similar thought. Three generations of Rao’s family have been making leather puppets and he says though people have an interest in the art, it is not translating financially. “We hardly get support from the government, there are non-profit organisations which help us with exhibitions and shows,” says the 36-year-old, whose family has got three national awards for contributing to this art form.
Originally hailing for the Dharmavaram, Andhra Pradesh, Rao often travels to Bengaluru for exhibitions and shows. But due to the pandemic, Rao says he has not done many shows last year. “Things could be slowly coming back to normal but not many shows are happening,” says Rao, who is now pinning his hopes on exhibitions. “Along with leather puppets, we are also making leather lamps and handicrafts to meet financial needs,” he adds.