With Strings Attached: An old puppeteer is keeping the folk art alive in rural Odisha

Kendrapara, Odisha

Making puppets is no child’s play, as Fakir Singh will tell you. But the 74-year-old sat carving a piece of wood that was gradually turning into a puppet in his gnarled fingers.

Fakir Singh is from Palakana village in Kendrapara district, Odisha, and he has earned considerable fame as one of Odisha’s best-known puppeteers.

“I drill the finished wooden puppets and fit them with strings. The process needs a lot of concentration and patience. I handle three puppets at a time in puppet shows, two with my hands and one with my teeth,” the puppeteer told Gaon Connection. He takes two days to crave each puppet and said he owned about 40 puppets that he had made. “The oldest one I have is one of Lord Rama, that is 50 years old,” he said.

But as he has grown older, Fakir Singh has found puppet shows draining on his energy. “It is back-breaking standing for a long time behind a curtain and pulling the strings,” he explained. An hour long show earned him Rs 1,000 while one that is one and a half hours gets him Rs 2,000, he said. Usually, it is in the months between October and March that Fakir Singh performs puppet shows. He performs around five shows in a month. Most of his performances are in the districts of Kendrapara , Jagatsinghpur and Jajpur. He also has two acres (1 acre = 0.4 hectare) of agricultural land where he grows paddy.

Fakir Singh makes puppets of popular mythological characters from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata besides figures of tigers, lions, elephants and so on.

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"Puppeteering has been my source of livelihood since childhood. But now, the profession is dwindling and I am perhaps the last of a long line of craftspeople struggling to survive,” said Fakir Singh.

“I want to prevent this age-old form of entertainment from fading into oblivion so I teach puppetry to about 15 children from in and around my village,” he said.

“But a true puppeteer can be one who truly loves his or her craft. They should not think only of money,” he pointed out.

Fakir Singh has himself practised puppetry since he was 15 years old. “I have known no other job. In the good old days, we had to work extra hours in order to meet the demand for puppet shows, particularly during festivals But not any more. I am probably the only string puppeteer in this area,” he said sadly.

Traditional string puppet has almost disappeared, said Tapan Pati, a former professor with Kendrapara Autonomous College. “We no longer take pride in it. However, Fakir Singh is trying his best to save this art,” he added.

The government is also trying to do its bit. “We organise awareness meetings on health, environment and other burning issues through puppet shows in the schools, colleges and other government functions with the help of Fakir Singh,” Pitambar Samal, Additional District Magistrate , Kendrapara, told Gaon Connection.

For six months now, 12-year-old Saroj Das has been coming to Fakir Singh to learn about puppeteering. “Along with 15 others I sit and learn from him. I want to follow in the footsteps of Fakir aaja (grandfather),” the young Saroj from Palakana village, told Gaon Connection.