The Folk Puppet Festival 2007 in Lahore

Culture on a string

Puppetry is a creative art form that gives inanimate objects illusory life for the purpose of telling tales that reflect the ethos of a society. Before the advent of television and even before radio arrived on the scene, folk puppetry was among the prime forms of entertainment.

Over the decades, however, puppetry in general has seen a dismal decline. The new generation of folk puppeteers are seeking out other professions to keep the kitchen fires burning with the devastating result that this rich art form now faces an uncertain future. The fact that the last of the craftsmen known for making wooden putlis (puppets) locally died some 10 years ago only serves to drive home this point.

In a desperate bid to save this art form from extinction, the Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop (RPTW) in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian embassy, recently held the fourth National Folk Puppet Festival coinciding with the World Puppet Day on March 22. The festival spread over four days was held at the Museum of Puppetry, Lahore, and dedicated to folk puppeteers and their craft. The audience was treated to the legendary folklore of Emperor Akbar’s courtroom in rustic Punjabi, to the beat of the dhol and popular filmi numbers in Madam Noor Jehan’s voice.

On a tangential note, the Museum of Puppetry is a commendable effort housing puppets from 28 countries in a three-storey structure. The collection of puppets is impressive with marionettes ranging from tiny finger-manipulated dolls to huge six-foot string puppets. Besides offering classes to aspiring students on different forms of puppetry, the museum also offers residence programmes for foreign puppeteers to come and live in for two to three months, conduct workshops, perform puppet shows, collaborate with local artistes in creating new pieces and design puppets among other activities. About 90 per cent of the puppet shows performed is free of cost, and the museum arranges free tours for schools and NGOs.

Faizaan Peerzada, the curator of the museum and RPTW president says, “Part of our work is financed by the Norwegian embassy’s assistance. To further generate funds, we have Café Peeru on the premises for a fine dining experience as well as live entertainment such as sufi, rock and ghazal nights apart from drama and puppet performances.

“I plan to get puppeteers from Rajasthan to teach the families of folk puppeteers. I want these families to learn the craft from their own people so that the art remains intact. We don’t want to modernise the art form as that license should only be with the new generation of folk puppeteers and not us,” he adds.

In a documentary called Puppeteers in the Dark, directed by Faizaan to highlight the bleak times faced by the dying craft, a folk puppeteer says, “As cities are getting larger, they are driving us out. Nobody has any interest in us anymore.” Another adds that as the craft of putli-making died with his father’s generation, he can only carry out repair work on his puppets and stitch their costumes, changing them once a year due to paucity of funds. All the folk puppeteers said they only perform if someone invites them and do not roam the streets looking for an audience as the exercise is futile.

But Faizaan is keen to make folk puppetry a viable entity once again. “People object to the rustic clothes and rural dialect of these puppeteers; I tell them it’s our culture. We take great pains in being eloquent in English while disassociating ourselves from our roots. I plan to keep at least two of these folk puppeteer families on my payroll, making elaborate costumes for them and their puppets. We have already made them popular through the World Performing Arts Festivals by keeping the tickets to their shows at a low price to encourage youngsters to watch the performances. We are also working out a plan for them to perform at private birthday parties, etc, so that they can earn a decent livelihood through their craft.”

With the new generation of folk puppeteers adding newer tales to their repertoire to reflect the moods of an ever-changing society, here’s hoping that with the efforts of the Rafi Peer team, this ancient art form will survive, evolving with time to reclaim its rightful place in our society as a popular form of entertainment.