In this Odisha teacher's class, puppets talk to teach

On Wednesdays, the dampened classroom for nursery kids at Sarasara Government Upper Primary School in Odisha’s Boudh district reverberates with euphoric voices.
Not just alphabets, he has been introducing his students to animals, fruits, flowers and birds through puppets.
Not just alphabets, he has been introducing his students to animals, fruits, flowers and birds through puppets.

On Wednesdays, the dampened classroom for nursery kids at Sarasara Government Upper Primary School in Odisha’s Boudh district reverberates with euphoric voices. Faces beaming with ecstasy lift the gloom over blackened walls, cracked windowpanes and peeling paints. A bunch of around 30 early-schoolers dressed in white and cyan have their eyes transfixed on a white screen that their 57-year-old acting headteacher, Basant Kumar Sahu, has placed in the room’s darkest corner. It isn’t like the usual days in school. The unpleasant sound of a chalk screeching down the blackboard is missing from the scene. Instead, the toddlers are treated with a euphony of rhymes and songs. And, on the white screen-shadows of alphabets appear. Much to their (the students’) amazement, the shadows move and ‘talk’ in the voice of their beloved teacher, Basant.

Since 1997, Basant has been the ‘innovative’ teacher for toddlers, who come for seeking early education at the school. He has been using puppetry as a tool to teach children and engage their imagination for faster learning of the languages. As the shadows of the Odia and English letters flicker, Basant’s narration from behind the screen add life to the dead alphabets. “I interact with the students as if the letters are introducing themselves. The students are asked to identify the letters through songs or rhymes that I keep composing at home,” he said. For instance, when the shadow of the Odia letter ‘Ga’ surfaced, the teacher asked-”Mo nama Ga. Tama nama kauna? Ga re ‘gachha’, Ga re ‘gadi’, Ga re ‘gamuchha’ (My name is letter ‘Ga’. What’s your name, children? Ga stands for words like ‘gachha’ , ‘gadi’ and ‘gamuchha.’) And, even the most reticent of all answers aloud! In his village and the neighbouring ones, Basant is popular as the ‘Kathputli (puppets) master’ who uses shadow, gloves and string puppets to make learning fun for children. But, the tales of his efforts travelled far and wide.

On August 21, he drew the attention of the independent jury constituted by Ministry of Education. Thus, he is one of the two teachers from Odisha who will receive the National Award for Teachers 2020 from the President. Only 47 teachers from the list of 153 have been shortlisted for the award. Born in a family of teachers, Basant was inspired by his father who toiled hard to teach students under the open sky in his native village, Mashabadi in Ganjam district. As a child, his father would take him to the adjacent village often for watching traditional puppeteers narrating stories from Mahabaharata and Ramayana. “I was fascinated by the way they made the puppets move to music. The long-eyed and vibrant puppets, made of wood, held me in raptures,” he recalled.

However, as he grew up, the puppeteers dwindled in numbers and vanished from the villages soon. It was out of sight and out of mind. But, years later after he had commenced his teaching career in 1987 at Upper Primary School Juramunda, the puppets were back in his life. “As I was flipping through the pages of a newspaper, I came across an advertisement put out by Centre for Cultural Resource and Training in 1993. They were inviting applications from teachers willing to get trained in the puppet teaching pedagogy. My love for puppets rekindled,” he said. The teacher undertook the training in New Delhi, Hyderabad and Udaipur.

As part of the short-term course, Basant learnt shadow and gloves puppetry. The teacher, who has a bachelors in education degree from KSUB College, Bhanjanagar, wanted to innovate further. After seeking information from a friend, he went to the nearby Badakobamda village - in search of traditional puppeteers or Kathputli makers in 1999. By then, the puppeteers had abandoned the art form to earn livelihood by other means. “I was fortunate to have met one family which had some old and damaged Kathputlis. They were in need of money. So, they sold around 20 puppets for `15,000 to me,” he said.

Basant was elated with his prized possessions - the Kathputlis. As he returned home, he spent days repairing the puppets, colouring them and stitching their dresses, all by himself! Now, that his puppets were ready, he created a house for them inside the school classroom with waste fabrics, discarded wood and laces. That became his puppet theatre for the early graders. Not just alphabets, he has been introducing his students to animals, fruits, flowers and birds through puppets.

“When I was a child, I walked three kilometres every day to reach my school. But, there were very few things there that could hold our attention for long. For my students, I use the puppet trick to keep them motivated throughout and not lose interest in education,” he added. To his credit, he has 10 episodes of his self-developed joyful curriculum for early graders. These were aired by Doordarshan under State Institutes of Educational Technology. He had received award from NCERT for innovative practices and experiments in education for schools in 2018- 2019. Using his set of puppets, he has travelled to far off villages for spreading awareness on social issues like girl child education, women’s empowerment, anti-tobacco campaign, among others. Today, he also aspires to encourage and train other teachers. Hence, he has formed a trust titled ‘Pranam’ to uplift the dying art.

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