“Rajasthan is our home. That’s where we truly belong, although we keep travelling across the country with our puppets. It feels good to promote this traditional form of entertainment and storytelling, as our ancestral profession, for many years now. The toys are renewed pretty often, which is a great deal of work. We carve toys from a single piece of wood and the ladies of our house add colours and dress them up. We even practice the stories we narrate beforehand to make sure it’s all set. We do a specialised form of string puppetry called Kathputli which is a traditional marionette of Rajasthan. We use the characters of Dhola- Maru and magician in our shows. Another major attraction of our shows would be the Kal Beliya dance accompanied by a highly dramatised version of traditional Rajasthani music. However, over the years, the art form has faced a few ups and downs. About 10 years ago, things were bad for us. But now people are taking notice. Big organisations like Dastkar support us and that helps with creating awareness. We’re still far from making heavy profits, but at least we’re not in losses anymore.”

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