Birju Shawal with puppets at his kiosk at Gram Shree Mela. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, March 30: They would remind one of the childhood days when a visit to the puppet show was a treat. Brightly dressed in bandhej outfits and in dazzling jewellery, wooden dolls from all over India drew visitors to kiosks in Gram Shree Mela.

This is the first time that puppets from Gujarat and Rajasthan found a room in a steel city fair.

Apart from the brightly-coloured puppets, tiny showpieces (six inches in height) to wall hangings, stuffed toys bandhej materials and bright ghagra cholis were also widely on display at the fair on rural handicrafts.

Puppets minus their makers are incomplete, and the puppeteers were also an added treat in the fair. Among all of them, Bhirju Shawala from Ahmedabad stole the show with his charisma and twinkling eyes.

“It is an art that has been passed down the generations in our family. My father, grandfather and their forefathers have been in this business. Now, I have taken it up,” explained Bhirju. “The puppets that I have got here are showpieces. Ones that are used for performances are different and are made in a different way. We have not got those,” he added.

At Bhirju’s kiosk, visitors can also spot the man himself at work — something that has been drawing people to the stall.

While making the puppets and talking to this correspondent, the artisan shyly explains that he is a busy man. After Jamshedpur, Bhirju would be travelling with the puppets to Singapore. And he has already travelled across India for various fairs.

Just a few shops down Bhirju’s, is K.L. Sharma’s Lok Seva Samiti kiosk. Sharma runs an NGO promoting puppet making at Ajmer in Rajasthan. Specialising in puppets, his collection is made by underprivileged women of Ajmer. “Over 3,000 women are now working with us at Ajmer and our products are sold in all emporiums across India,” explained Sharma.

Apart from the puppets, Sharma’s artisans also specialise in making velvet wall hangings that depict Indian myths and lore.

“Both Gujarat and Rajasthan are participating in a big way in this year’s fair,” said an official of Tribal Culture Society, the organiser of the fair. The two states seemed to have added a dash of colour to the fair as bandhej materials from both the states, beaded wall hangings and mirror work on almost every showpiece dazzled visitors.