Of puppetry, laughs and realisation

As a part of Krishnakriti Festival of Art and Culture, Jagdish Bhat, a famous Kathputli narrator mesmerised the audience with his puppets show at Rock Heights on Sunday.

The 30-minute show is a story of Amar Singh Rathore, who works as a courtier for Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. One day Amar Singh asks Shah Jahan two weeks leave for searching for his bride.

The king warns Amar Singh that he should come to the king’s palace before two weeks, otherwise he should be punished.

In two weeks time instead of searching for his wife, he finds various local art forms like puppeteers show and he also understands the importance of saving those art forms for future.

In the third week, he goes to his king and tells him the plight of local arts. Then the king asks Amar Singh to save all the art forms in the country.

Kathputli dance is one of the important and ancient folk art forms of Rajasthan State. The tribes of Rajasthan have been performing it since ancient times.

In this Kathputli dance, the puppeteers use ballads to narrate the stories with movements of string puppets.

“My ancestors are performing this puppetry dance since 1,500 years in Rajasthan. We are living in Kathputli Colony since 1,500years.

The Kathputli dance form has derived from the time of Mughal’ rule and we are doing it seven generations. We performed it in many countries and in July we will perform it in an international festival in Germany.

We are happy to perform in Hyderabad and we got a good response here,” Jagdish Bhat said.