Tholpavakkoothu exponents led by Ramachandra Pulavar introduced the Indian traditional temple art during an international puppet festival held in South Korea.
The Chuncheon Puppet Festival 2022, the most famous puppet festival of South Korea, provided a great platform for Ramachandra Pulavar and his team to introduce Tholpavakkoothu in its original and traditional style in front of puppeteers from around the world.
The Tholpavakkoothu team from Palakkad was the sole group to represent India in puppetry, an artform that struggles to get a place in the frontline in the country. “When we stuck to our traditional and original artform, we were surprised to find puppeteers from other countries using modern and contemporary techniques,” said Ramachandra Pulavar and his son Rajeev Pulavar.
According to them, the audiences were wowed to see them enact the Ramayana episodes in traditional fashion with the puppets moving against the burning traditional oil lamps. “Even though there were shadow puppetry from some other countries, the Tholpavakkoothu was recognised as unique and originally appealing, in spite of having been taken out of temple premises,” they said.
Ramachandra Pulavar and team presented the art for three days at the festival which drew to a close on Wednesday. Although the 34th edition of the festival had been scheduled for 10 days from August 26, it had to be postponed to September for different reasons.
Puppeteers from countries such as Greece, Spain, Malaysia, Singapore, Germany, China, Australia and Italy presented their unique style at the festival held at Chuncheon Puppet Theatre.
“We also introduced the art of making puppets and the efforts that we put behind the screens during seminars and workshops,” said Rajeev Pulavar. He said that the episodes of Ganapati Vandanam, Panchavadi construction, deer hunting, Sita’s abduction, Jatayu redemption, Rama-Ravana war, and Rama’s ascension were presented in the traditional manner.
Ramachandra Pulavar said that it was a Korean woman’s will to include Tholpavakkoothu in the famous Korean puppet festival that made them travel abroad in the wake of COVID-19. The woman was so enamoured by the temple art after watching it the whole night a few years ago, that she took a pledge to take it to her land. It was the second foreign trip for them after France in less than a year.
Apart from Ramachandra Pulavar and Rajeev Pulavar, the others part of the team were Lakshman, Prasobh and Manoj.
