MUSEUMS IN INDIA CONTAINING PUPPETS

Gombeatta , Karnataka
(String Puppet)

Bharatia Lok Kala Mandal

This famous museum is near the City Palace, Udaipur, Rajasthan. The interesting collection exhibited in this museum has achieved a rear preservation of folk arts, costumes, dolls, masks, musical instruments and paintings. The high point of the exhibits is the puppets. Established by Devilal Samar, the museum has a good collection of traditional puppets of India and some foreign puppets, presented by different countries. It has also an auditorium where traditional Rajasthani puppet shows are regularly held.

Chacha Nehru Children's Museum

This museum is at Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala. It has traditional dolls with traditional costume.

Chitrakala Parishad

Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad is located in Bangalore and is working since 1967. It has a collection of 2000 traditional puppets.

Crafts Museum

It is located at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi. The museum has an exhibition of unique craft objects, including puppets from all over India.

Folklore Museum, Manasa Gangotri

This museum is located in Mysore, Karnataka. It has a very large collection of shadow and string puppets.

Indira Gandhi National Centre For The Arts (IGNCA)

IGNCA, located in Delhi, is the national body for the Indian art and culture, and their manifestation in textual, still image, moving image and audio form, comprising both primary material of books, journals, manuscripts, paintings, sketches, slides, video-films, etc. and secondary material on their annotations and reprography.  It has a collection of slides of Indonesian shadow puppets and films on traditional puppets in its rich archives.

Jagmohan Palace

Located in Mysore, Karnataka, it has collection of crafts object including puppets.

Karnataka Janapada Trust

The Trust was set up in Bangalore in 1979. It is the brainchild of the renowned writer and folk-lover H.L. Nage Gowda. The Trust has a folk museum, comprising video recordings of shadow, rod and string puppetry of Karnataka. The museum has also a collection of all puppets available in Karnataka, including miniature puppets.

Malliah Theare Crafts Museum

It is situated in  Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg,  New Delhi  and commemorates the of memory Srinavas  Malliah, a patriot and associated  with the theatre movement in pre-Independence  India.  The museum  contains a rare collection of puppets,  masks and ornaments.

National Children Museum

This museum is in Bal Bhavan, New Delhi. It has a rich collection of toys and dolls from India and abroad.

Nehru Children's Museum

This museum is near Birla Planetarium in Kolkata. It has a good collection of dolls from India and abroad with some puppets.

Orissa State Meseum

The museum located at Bhuvaneswar. It has a collection of traditional string puppets of Orissa.

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum

It is in Pune, Maharashtra.   It specialises  in  Chitrakathi  collection and  its  regional variations of Mahabharata and Ramayana. Narratives, music and songs accompany the scroll paintings. Some leather puppet traditions of Karnataka and Andhra Prradesh are reflected in these paintings.

Sangeet Natak Akademi

It has a museum at Rabindra Bhawan, Ferozshah Road, New Delhi. The museum has a very large collection of different  traditional puppets of India.  The  Akademi also  has a large archive of audio and videotapes, photographs and films on puppetry.

Shankar's International Doll's Museum

It is on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi. It has mainly a collection of dolls from around the world, which contains some puppets as well.

Indian Puppetry Festivals

Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA), under Government of India, has organised various events focusing on puppet theatre since 1950. National Festivals of Shadow Theatre (1966,‘78 and ‘97); Festival of Masks and Puppets (1972); Indian International Puppet Festival (1990) were organized in collaboration with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations; apart from three National Festivals of Marionette Theatre (1994-95); and a Festival of Traditional Rod and Glove Puppetry (1997). The associated workshops during the festivals gave an opportunity to Indian puppeteers to interact with their counterparts from other regions.  Besides, SNA often organises festivals of contemporary puppets and many modern groups also organise festival in their respective places.

Awards Of Indian Puppetry

SNA has been giving awards to outstanding puppeteers every year. Many State governments and organisations also give awards to individual puppeteers or groups. Centre for Cultural Resources & Training (CCRT), under Government of India, has instituted annual Teachers’ Awards for CCRT’s trained teachers who are doing commendable work on puppetry in the field of education.

Scholarships & Fellowships On Indian Puppetry

CCRT  provides  Cultural Talent Search Scholarship  to meritorious school-going  children between ages 9-14 to learn puppetry under qualified puppeteer as Guru.

Department of Culture, Government of India, provides Scholarships to Young Artists (age group of 18-35) in Different Cultural Fields, which include puppetry. It gives financial assistance to young artists of outstanding promise for advanced training within India. The selected awardees are required to undergo advanced training on a full-time basis for two years under a reputed Guru/Institution.

Department of Culture also provides Fellowships to outstanding artistes in puppetry. Artists in the age group of 40 years and above are eligible for Senior Fellowships and artists in the age group of 25-40 years are eligible for Junior Fellowships. The selected candidates undertake academic or application- oriented research work for their selected projects. The projects are for two years.