Creating a narrative through puppets

KOCHI:  Grandpa and Grandma baked a bun. Grandma kept the bun by the window to cool but it jumped out the window and rolled away. “It rolled down the hill. Yippee! And it rolled up the hill. Woohoo!” said the storyteller. Listening to the storyteller are over a dozen pair of curious eyes. With Mr Bun puppet in her left hand and the other characters in her right hand, she guides the children through the Russian folktale of how the bun gets gobbled up by a fox. Her story is punctuated with songs and animated gestures. At the end of her story, the storyteller receives an excited applause from her audience.

This is Usha Venkitraman introducing puppetry to children in the city. She was leading the workshop in Readers’ Fest, which concludes on Saturday, at LuLu Mall in Kochi. “In the workshop today, I will help the children make puppets. By teaching them the basic storytelling techniques, they will be equipped to stand and present something in front of an audience with confidence,” she says.

Usha’s work with puppetry began 23 years ago. “When my kids were enrolled in play school, the school’s theme was puppets,” she says. “It began as a hobby then. Now it is my life and everything that I am.”

A classical vocal singer, Usha has a unique and particular style of puppetry. “I add songs to my stories. I incorporate folk tales and songs and present it with my puppets. I source the stories from around the world. My stories are multicultural folktales and each one has a lesson one can adhere to,” she says.

Initially, the Mumbai-based puppeteer used to make her puppets. “I used to make glove puppets. I still do,” she says. “Now, I also buy them from around the world. In India, I work with the people in Kathputli colony of street performers in Delhi.”

Puppetry is a dying art form that is in desperate need of saving. “There aren’t many proponents of the art form today. So I consider it my job to revive it to its earlier popularity,” she says.Through her career that focuses on saving the pure art form, Usha aims to bring in a change in the social order. “If at least two people in my audience take back something good from my session, then my job is done,” she says. The puppeteer also wants to learn the details of string puppetry. Also, Usha works with several NGOs for women’s causes.