Puppets, Puppet Play or Puppetry, called as Kathputli in hindi, has been in existence from time immemorial and has existed across all parts of world and all cultures.
There must be some good reason for it being so.
May be humans have used puppets to express themselves to a wider audience in a more interesting way.
A puppet is an object which often resembles a human or an animal or may be some mythological figure. Puppetry or Puppet plays are theater performances using puppets.
These theaters do story telling using puppets and this makes it very interesting.
In India, this is a tradition more than thousands and thousands of year old and may be is the place where puppetry originated.
This tradition was made more famous by puppeteers of Rajasthan.
Infact in Delhi, there is a colony of puppeteers from Rajasthan called as Kathputli colony. It is a fascinating little world!
But it is not just Rajasthan which has a tradition of puppet shows. In our country almost every corner of country has this fascinating tradition.
Various cultures have used puppetry to depict characters of great religious and historical importance like Ramyana and Mahabharata which is a great learning.
There are various types of puppets which we will not go into details, but two simple types are finger puppets and hand puppets.
Kathputli Benefits – do children benefit by puppet play?
Yes it does benefit.
- It is able to engage the kids well as kids relate it to a story in a fun way.
- Hand puppets can be used by kids to practice story telling. This helps improving communication skills and thinking ability.
- This is kind of role play and hence helps improving confidence.
- Help removing fear and hesitation.
Hence go ahead and buy some good finger puppets for your kids or take them to some good puppet shows in your city.
If you are more interested in learning more about puppetry, history etc in India, you cal also visit http://www.puppetindia.com
You can also look at http://www.isharapuppet.com/ for their calendar on puppet shows.
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Fabulous yaar, what amazing insight on love and parenting…just love readign your blogs