Dancing Colours at his fingertips

HYDERABAD: Kathputli or the string puppets from Rajasthan have a history of a thousand years. The art has travelled far and wide and keeps coming to Hyderabad. This time it’s part of Dastkar Nature Bazaar, at Kamma Sangham, Ameerpet. Enter the premises and among Ajrakhs, Bandhinis, jute bags, Kantha scarves you will find a stall blooming with colourful puppets in different sizes and styles. On the stall-table, they beam in colours like fuchsia, red, blue, mustard and emerald. Look up and you find larger ones with more hues. Their creator Vinod Bhatt, 27, from Sikar, Rajasthan makes 10 puppets in 15 days with the help of his family. “I used to see my grandfather take up the craft so passionately and I followed in his footsteps,” shares the puppeteer. He uses fresh fabrics, zari work and velvet”.

He patiently waits at the counter for customers to finish picking their favourite puppets before he takes the toys and hands them over in crumpled newspaper sheets. Meanwhile, he asks his brother to get ready for the evening. “We wear traditional attire and perform puppet dance for the visitors,” he says adjusting an entangled row of tiny puppets jingling with bells. The show isn’t ticketed. “Sometimes people leave `200 or 500 as tokens of appreciation,” he says adding that it’s mostly folk songs like ...ek pallu latke... Kalia kid pada mele mein ... Holia ma uddare gulal that the show is based on. “Sometimes, we get projects to perform on a theme mostly in Delhi, Pune, Bangalore, and Chennai. This November he is going to Dubai with his group of 35 artistes which include drummers, dancers of Kalbelia, dummy horse riders, mask puppet dancers, and magicians. He also conducts workshops for school children.  He can be contacted at 9811990222.