About the Book

Puppetry originated in India and travelled across the seven seas to the Eastern and Western world as vouched by many scholars. Puppets dated back to a period well before Bharata's Natya Shastra and have continued unabated throughout the centuries in almost all Indian states. Puppetry is one enduring form, which has entertained masses and educated people. The famous puppeteers of Rajasthan are really acrobats, who only put on puppet shows when they move out of villages. These and a thousand other scintillating facts come out of this exciting book for the reader's entertainment and elucidation. Puppets are by no means for only children- as the puppeteers of Orissa sing and dance about the romantic love of Radha and Krishna, and Keralan puppets narrate Kathakali stories in the same make-up and costumes.

The book aims at giving a connected account of the children of the Indian puppets: their variety, their multiple functions, their craft, their animation and their connections with other related arts in five separate parts. The book also contains- for the first time in any book on puppetry-four important appendices: Museums in India containing puppets, Directory of Indian Puppeteers, Global Bibliography on Puppeteers and a relevant Glossary. The world of Indian puppets is seen in vivid colors with scores of colored photographs and many line drawings and half tone pictures- in their many sided splendor: variety of the glove, rod, string, shadow, and human puppets and a myriad background stories of the puppet-masters and their imaginative landscape of free creativity.

About the Author

Sampa Ghosh joined Calcutta Puppet Theatre (CPT) under Suresh Dutta in 1980. She received scholarship for Young Workers in Different Cultural Fields from Ministry of culture, Government of India, for puppetry in 1982-85 and participated in more than 2000 shows all over India and Bangladesh as a member of CPT up to 1986. She worked at SRC Puppet Repertory as its Director in 1986-87 and directed four puppet plays, which proved very popular. She participated in Indian Manifestation Festival in Sweden in 1987 as the group leader, performing 42 shows all over Sweden. She conducted many puppet workshops in India and Canada especially for children and teachers. She directed two children productions and gave a lecture demonstration on Indian puppets to international group of puppeteers under the aegis of Kala Bharati and Quebec Puppeteers Association of Canada in Montreal in 1995. As as outstanding artist, she received Senior Fellowship from Government of India in 2001-03 for creating a website portal on Indian Puppetry. Her recent monograph on Make Your Own Puppets has been highly applauded.

Dr. Utpal K. Banerjee, an adviser on Management and Information Technology for nearly thirty years, has an abiding interest in Indian art and culture. He has been National Project Director for Indira Gandhi National centre for the Arts (IGNCA) relating to the UNDP project on Multimedia Database for Art and Culture Documentation and Computerisa-tion from 1990-92. He has been utilized by Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) to lecture on Indian Art and Culture in Canada in 1990 and in South America in 1998. He has also given similar lectures in Canada and USA in 1992 and 1995, as invited by Kala Bharati of Canada. He has been lecturing on Indian Arts and Culture in the training courses at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) to the Afro-Asian diplomats. His comprehensive book Indian Performing Arts has gone into several editions and Bengali Theatre: 200 Years has come out from publication Division. He has been writing on the arts and culture in India Perspective, Sruti, Rasamanjari and Indrama journals and regularly writing on performing arts in The Pioneer newspaper every week. He has been a prolific contributor and anchorperson on cultural and professional programmes to London BBC, AIR and Indian Doordarshan over last 35 years.