Tholu Bommalaata. The 1,000 year-old-art of puppet-making and show sets the stage and mood for retelling of epics like Mahabharata and Ramayana. But it takes several days of painstaking hard work to bring them to life.
These are human size goatskin leather puppets. And puppet theatre artiste and exponent Dalavai Kullayaapa was in town for a workshop on the art and a theatre adaptation of the two epics. He shares, “We have been doing it in our family for several years. I am the 15th generation artiste. Nobody knows the exact date or the year when this art form began to take shape.”
He has been creating puppets on a goat leather scroll with natural colours. The puppets are human size, sometimes even taller ranging up to eight feet tall. They look almost alive in sparkling colours painstakingly punched out with holes and then fitted with bulbs. That’s when they are brought behind a screen. The puppets get voices by the actors; quick limb movements adds to the narrative.
The 32-year-old artist from Nimmalakunta, Anantpur shares, “We get the raw goat leather, cleanse it and then begin our work. Depending upon the size it can take even 15 days to finish making a puppet. It takes at least three days to make one.” But why do they use leather? “It’s shadow puppetry and leather helps form that much better than any other material.”
There are six people in his team and they all take parts in telling the story. They tell the tales in a mix of Telugu and Sanskrit. An hour's show requires the artiste to use about 35 puppets. Unfortunately, like other old art forms this is also dying and the artists are forced to find other channels to showcase their craft. That’s how they have begun creating lampshades and other objets d’art so that the art can at least breathe. The artiste was part of Puppet Theatre at the ongoing Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival.
Not a child's play
There are six people in his team and they all take parts in telling the story. They tell the tales in a mix of Telugu and Sanskrit. An hour's show requires the artiste to use about 35 puppets, says puppet theatre artiste Dalavai Kullayaapa when in city.