BANGALORE, INDIA, May 5, 2014 (Bangalore Mirror): She is stunning even at age 150. With her long black hair bedecked with flowers, a crimson tilak on her face, a big nose-ring, chunky earrings, and a curvaceous figure under a bright red nine-yard sari, she looks resplendent. Queen, all of two feet, is a leather puppet, created from deer leather, crafted by a puppeteer hailing from Bellary. She, along with about 399 others, has been taken out of her 30-year residence in the basement of the Chitrakala Parishath (CKP), to be displayed at CKP’s first such large exposition on leather puppets. For the first time, these wondrous creations will be reliving their old days of glory, when village folk gathered in the evenings to see the grand magnificent shadow act narration of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata.
Part of MS Nanjunda Rao’s, the grand doyen of CKP’s 3,000 plus collection, one of the largest in the country, Queen was bought from her puppeteer during the 1960s. Rao had travelled through villages with a research team, coaxing puppeteers to sell some puppets. Until the ’60s and ’70s, puppets would provide complex entertainment to villagers. Puppeteers learned the craft from their family, and belonged to the Chitavaaru, Sellekethe, Jananga, Gomberamdavaru or Katbhajananga community.
As many as 400 leather puppets, some over 100 years old, will be celebrated at a city festival that aims to reclaim their past glory. The Festival of Leather Puppets, Chitrakala Parishath, will be held May 3 – 11.