CUTTACK: For many puja revellers in Cuttack, pandal hopping is incomplete without watching ‘Dhinki Kuta’ at Chhatra Bazaar. The unique puppetry show that depicts daily life and kitchen chores in a traditional Odia household has been central to Durga Puja celebration at Chhatra Bazaar for over six decades now.
Started by Bhagaban Chandra Laha, a silversmith of Mansinghpatna in Cuttack, the tradition is now being carried forward by his son Ganesh Laha who is a carpenter by profession. With few hours left for Durga Puja to begin, Ganesh is now busy giving finishing touches to the puppets and setting them on the stage. His father, he said, began the puppetry show in his 20s and continued till he was 85 years old.
“My father had an interest in puppetry but he did not learn it from anyone. His idea was to show daily life revolving around an Odia family’s food cycle and the women involved in it. He had two Muslim workers who helped him with the shows. The remuneration wasn’t much but he wanted to keep the tradition that he started alive,” said Ganesh.
He used to make the puppets and stage the shows all by himself. Prior to Chhatra Bazaar, Bhagaban used to stage the puppetry show at Alamchand Bazaar during Durga Puja.
Having learnt the craft from his father, 49-year-old Ganesh took over the mantle after Bhagaban died 20 years ago. A month before the Durga Puja, he begins preparing the 32 puppets of men and women. While the faces are fashioned out of mud, they are fixed on to wooden structures and then dressed in sarees, dhoti, kurta and pyjama.
There are nine scenes in the Dhinki Kuta show that depict the traditional practice of pounding rice on the ‘dhinki’, use of ‘kula’, ‘chaki’, preparation of ‘Chitau Pitha’, ‘Saga Kata’, ‘Macha Kata’, ‘Besara Bata’, ‘Mudhi Bhaja’ and making of ‘Ghola Dahi’.
The puppeteer uses real wooden ‘dhinki’, ‘kula’, ‘sila’ and ‘chakki’ for the show. “While my father started it to show how women are integral to a household and what are the various jobs they do in a kitchen to feed their families, my aim has been to shed light on the traditional manner of cooking in an Odia kitchen which is fast vanishing,” he said. The puppetry show, he added, fetches him money that lasts for four to five months. During Durga Puja, the shows continue from morning to night. Today, the Dhinki Kuta show is not just limited to Cuttack. Ganesh is roped in by puja committees in Balangir, Dhenkanal, Barang to stage it during Nuakhai, Lakshmi Puja and Kartika Puja.