Recently, he presented a show, Amar Singh Rathore, at Delhi's India International Centre, the culmination of a year-long workshop with young puppeteers from his vicinity. The 56-year-old is working hard to change that mindset. 'But, unfortunately, their children, with the exception of a handful, are no longer interested in carrying on the traditional vocations,'he says. This area is popularly known as Kathputli Colony, since a number of itinerant artistes - from jugglers and folk singers to dancers and acrobats - chose to settle here. 'Children like me couldn't go to school because, as banjaras, we moved from place to place, and travelled all across northern India and even Nepal doing shows.'He is sitting comfortably on a simple cotton duree in his modest house near Shadipur Depot in Delhi. 'I learnt to count when I was about nine and that was it,'he says. Having lived the life of a gypsy as a child, kathputli ka khel was the only education he received. An art that has such hallowed origins shouldn't be allowed to die,'says Bhatt, winner of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2003. His throne is believed to have been embedded with 52 statues.

'In fact, we trace our origins back to the days of the legendary Ujjain king Veer Vikramaditya.

'Our ancestors made a name for themselves doing kathputli ka khel (puppetry),'he says.

Puran Bhatt is a man with a mission: to ensure that puppetry, the art that his forefathers once nurtured, gets a new lease of life.

Puppetry in india