People and Place

Design Resource

Kathputli

Making of Puppet

Prof. Bibhudutta Baral,Anisha Crasto and Anushree Kumar

People and Place

Traditionally the artisans who were involved in making puppets belonged to the nomadic community called as Putli Bhatt or Nat. Nats are the performing artists who used to wander from village to village along with their portable theatres. They entertained gatherings by narrating the achievement of the heroes from mythological and social traditions. Though they belong, originally, to the Nagaur area in the Marwar region, they travel all through the country in order to exhibit their skills. Today these communities have settled in different parts of Rajasthan and are still practicing this age old tradition. In Jaipur there are around 5000 artisans involved in making puppets. In current times several other communities like Muslims and Sindhis are getting involved in it at different levels of either artisanship or as middlemen. Different countries have different forms of puppet traditions. In India itself puppetry is practiced in different states, differing in terms of raw material used, characters made and stories taken for narration. Rajasthan is the hub of Puppet tradition. The main centers of puppetry are Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Sawai Madhopur, Nagaur and Bikaner. In Jaipur, Kathputali is practiced by the artisans in Kathputliwalon Ka Mohalla.

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