All strings attached

Ramdas Padhye was just six years old when his father Y. K. Padhye handed him his first puppet and got him started on lessons in ventriloquism. For the next ten years, he learned to modulate and throw his voice without moving his lips, before performing in his first show, at the young age of 12. Despite getting a degree in mechanical engineering, the puppeteer never forgot his early lessons, and when his father passed away in 1967, Ramdas picked up the mantle as master puppeteer. Despite the seeming glamour in the title, the ventriloquist, who is gearing up for a talk on puppetry in the city, says that there is little glory in the art, especially in India. He will speak about this and his journey in puppetry and ventriloquism.

“In India, when you use the term puppetry, people still think of the Rajasthani puppets, which are a part of the folk culture and are only used to entertain children. That puppetry can cater to an adult audience as well, is something that is not really explored here,” he says, adding that the major reason for this is probably because most people look for more glamorous arts or quicker ways to the spotlight.

Ramdas, however, has gone well beyond the usual realms of string and glove puppets and traditional stage performances. He says, “I have explored television, movies and ad films aside from my usual stage performances, and each one is unique. For instance, in television, the camera zooms right up to your face, as opposed to the stage, where the audience is at least a dozen feet away. In a movie, you have to design puppets that suit each shot. It changes with each frame. In an ad film, on the other hand, it is all about capturing the attention of the audience in a short span of time.”

The puppet maker recalls a particular puppet for Lijjat Papad advertisement where he had designed a rabbit puppet for Doordarshan during the 80s. “The company asked me to make a husband and wife puppet but I suggested the rabbit. They were flabbergasted. ‘A rabbit doesn’t eat papad,’ they said. I told them that Lijjat Papad is so good that even bunnies eat them. So we made the ad with the rabbit and it became iconic,” he laughs.

The puppeteer’s only lament is that puppetry is not fully appreciated in India. “On an international plane, puppetry has advanced in leaps and bounds. However, when it comes to India, people don’t really give the art the importance it deserves. That is something that I want to change,” he says.

And perhaps, through his enormous body of work, which includes over 9,800 puppet shows, Ramdas has made some progress in doing so. His experiments have definitely pushed the bounds of puppetry as perceived in the country, “I have used automated puppets, radio-controlled puppets and other varieties of puppets, along with the traditional string an sock puppets, in various productions. I even learned the French black light puppetry technique. I also do a show with my wife Aparna, which is probably the only puppetry show where the husband and wife puppeteer duo is actually played by a real life husband and wife,” he laughs. “There is an audience for these arts; you just have to convince them that this is something that they will enjoy,” he sings off.

Ramdas Padhye will be speaking at Mumbai Local on January 20, 5.30 pm onwards, At Kitab Khana, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Fort