In the darkened environs of Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, a white screen tilted towards the audience gets lit up to the strains of the music being played, and shadow images made the world of asuras, devas, apsaras and other mythological characters come alive. The overflowing auditorium with school children resounded with cheers as the familiar story of ‘Hanuman’s search for Sita’ unfolded at the leather puppet show presented by S. Seethalakshmi as a part of the Yagnaraman July festival, jointly presented by Tamilnadu Eyal Isai Nataka Mandram.
After a prayer to lord Ganapathy, the narrative began with the story of Soorpanakha’s entry at Rama’s abode in Panchavati. The conceptualisation of using space effectively was seen, when only Soorpankha’s face was shown first and then a portion of her body emerged at the edge of the screen before she entered and transformed herself into a beautiful maiden.
The story then took the audience through various interesting episodes from the Ramayana, like Mareecha and Jatayu vadam, Vaali-Sugriva fight, Sita apaharan, Hanuman at Ashoka vana and Rama-Ravana yudham.
Following the Natya Sastra guidelines, the characters have specific colour codes — Rama is blue-green, Sita is golden brown, Ravana is red and black and so on. Attached to sticks, which aids movement, the sutradhar infuses life into these puppets with his swift hand movements from behind the screen.
This show which had pre-recorded music was vibrant with the use of instruments like mukavina, mridangam and bells combined with dialogues and songs rendered by the actors. In a span of 80 minutes, the five sutradhars manipulated nearly 90 puppets with great dexterity and skill. The episodes flowed one after another with dramatic impact. Heads being severed, monkeys somersaulting, arrows flying across and the background score made the battle scene riveting.
Lot of imagination was seen in some sequences such as Hanuman crossing the ocean.
The figure of Hanuman becoming smaller and smaller to enter the rakshasi’s mouth and later growing in size to show his vishwaropam in Asoka vana showcased the skill of the puppeteers. Equally powerful was the visual of Jatayu’s wing floating after Ravana wields his sword. Introduction of additional characters , added to the storyline visually.
