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In the Absence of an Audience ……….

In Kerala shadow puppetry is more or less a religious temple ritual performed during certain months of the year. It is interesting to note that the show is performed even in the absence of an audience.


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Interesting Facts
  Puppetry is the only art form which involves many activities like drawing and painting, wood carving and carpentry, plaster cast making, clay modelling, costume designing and preparation, story,script writing and dramatization, song and music composition, stage craft, etc.

  The Andhra Pradesh shadow puppet faces are painted white, red and yellow for good characters. White, black and red for evil ones. The good and the bad character puppets are stored separately.

  In rural India puppet shows are organised to ward off evil spirits and to bring rain and prosperity to the villages.

  The string-rod puppets from Tamil Nadu and Karnataka weighs about 8-10 kilos!

  The ola pavai kuthus - puppets made from palm leaves were believed to have existed long ago in Kerala.


A mythological story of puppets
A carpenter once made two beautiful wooden figures. Goddess Parvathi saw these two
colourful figures and in a playful mood slipped into one figure and enticed lord Shiva to enter the other one. They then began an celestial dance duet. They quit later and let the two figures fall on the ground. The carpenter who had watched his inanimate creations come a live for a while and then become lifeless, prayed to the divine couple to animate them. They agreed to help the carpenter if he suggest a method of doing so. The carpenter then hit upon a method by which tying strings to the various limbs of the figure which when pulled would animate them. The divine Shiva and Parvathi blessed the innovation and this was how PUPPETRY was born.

(Source : Handicrafts of India, Kamaladevi Chattopadyaya, ICCR, New Delhi)

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