LIGHTING THE SHADOW

Sze Chun Chan (JC) New York City
For the Madurai Messenger, April 2010


"Hello, brother," a grizzled man speaks in a deep voice, mimicking the speech of a harlequin figurine in front of his face. "Welcome, welcome!" it nods.

Lakshman Rao displays his leather puppets, some of which are hand painted by his grandfather hundreds of years ago.

It is a scorching day in Tamil Nadu and the sun bakes earth and leather. The leather is not new, but it is meticulously painted. Lakshman Rao, a fifth generation shadow puppeteer, doesn’t take the mythical figures out as often as he would like. He proudly exhibits his collection of leather hand made puppets. Some of them are over a hundred years old. His father, grandfather, and great grandfathers have painted them all by hand.

Typically, Rao keeps them in a cardboard box safe from excessive sunlight and moisture, but not today. When he’s not struggling to earn food for his wife and four boys, he is fighting hard to keep an ancient form of theatre and his bloodline’s legacy alive.

“Shadow puppetry gave birth to cinemaand television.” Rao says, twirling a redkazoo in hand, a simple music instrumentused for sound effects.

Behind the Scenes

In Tamil, the art of shadow puppetry is called Thol Pavai Koothu, which means “Leather Puppet Show” when translated. It is an ancient form of theatre that involves the manipulation of hand puppets behind a translucent screen. A scene has the performer mimicking dialogue as he is moving puppets. Meanwhile, other performers will produce claps of drums in rhythm, and sound effects from the whizzing of arrows to the dull clacks of brick shoes for fight scenes.

Pavai Koothu originated around 1025 AD in Southern India as a theatre form to tell Hindu myths. The art peaked when it became nightly evening entertainment for the Maharajas of India. One of Lakshman Rao’s favorite play o perform is Ramayana, a classic Hindu myth about an intense rivalry between Rama and Ravana. When Rama’s brother Lakshman, who shares his name with Rao, was pierced by a poison arrow shot by Ravana, the monkey faced god Hanuman, tore up and carried an entire mountain with remedial herbs just to save him.

Shadow of its Chic Cousins

Once a theatre form that thrilled and enchanted villages across the states of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka, Shadow Puppetry has since taken a backseat to the glamour of modern day film and cinema. Even though it is easy to argue cinema as an evolution of shadow puppetry, the two arts are quite dissimilar.

“When you see a shadow play at night in the dark and there are shadows involved, it’s very unique,” says Dr. R. Bhanumathi, Managing Trustee at the Pavai Centre for Puppetry, Chennai. “Shadow has its own feelings when colours come out.”

Hard Times

One time the entertainment of kings and a jewel of antiquated Tamil culture, shadow puppetry today is limited to entertaining school children and college students in cultural festivals. Rao performs for this crowd and depends on it for a living, but he struggles to find the next gig. This is the way that his forefathers have lived. They performed for kings and villages and were in turn paid in foodstuff. These travelling performers never had much but a cart of puppets and rice, but times have changed and it’s even harder to eat.

The audience enjoying the plays todayis a trickle as compared to the flood ofentire villages and kingdoms that usedto watch their performances. Rao andhis family are currently living in mud and palm leaf huts on governmentowned land. He says he gets bootedabout every ten years from a locale.Meanwhile, the Indian governmentdoes give support to these families, buteven banks are scared to give themloans fearing they will never repay.

“Villages use to believe that shadowpuppeteers bring prosperity andluck.” Bhanumathi says. “But in moderntimes, those thoughts are slowlychanging.”

Wandering Artistes

In Kerala, shadow puppetry is being kept alive because it is often used in religious gatherings to tell the stories of the Hindu god, Rama. Because the theatre art serves a purpose as a Hindu storytelling device, the Kerala performers enjoy more stability.

Other states of Southern India have its own unique variations of shadow puppetry. The most famous includes life sized five feet mythological puppets from Andhra Pradesh.

As shadow puppetry is a very localisedand rural art, it does not get much of afollowing in cities, but is limited to sporadicperformances in small villages.Worst, the performing families, withabout 100 in Andhra Pradesh, andsmaller in other states, are now scattered.They each consider themselvesto be better performers than the otherand live destitute, almost nomadic lives,traveling by carting their puppets fromvillage to village, looking for a chanceto perform.

“The world is developing, and they haveto develop their theatre form with it.”Bhanumathi says. “They are not united.And have rivalries of who is best. It isalso a male dominated art; the womenonly play musical instruments. Like allart forms, it may be gone as the worldmoves beyond it.”

The Show Must Go On

Rao’s children gathered around in a semicircle as his sons set up the stage. He readies a large screen, about 5 foot wide and 4 foot deep. Behind it are not film spools or light boxes or any sort of electrical gobbledygook, but unadulterated afternoon sun. A teenager readies a hammer and an iron stake and steadily digs a small hole. Another of his sons stretches the cloth screen across an iron frame.

Rao’s wife readies at his side, cymbal s in hand. He takes a breath behind the screen as he gathers his leather actors, actresses, and props. The village children patiently wait. Rao puts on his earthen clapping shoes (when characters fight), a kazoo at side (for flying arrows and various projectiles). He tests the shoes. (They clap.) And his kazoo. (It sounds like the call of geese).

Everything is good to go. Rao is happy, at least for this day. He has an audience. And he is keeping the art form alive, at least for a little while longer.