Hazarika and her pupils at a workshop in her crafts school, Creative Hands. Picture by UB Photos

June 11: For a birthday bash, kids here love it when their favourite cartoon characters come alive ? in the form of muppets. And for Zebin Hazarika, it’s right down her Sesame Street.

But the lone muppet expert of the region does her bit for underprivileged streetchildren as well, training them to make life-size puppets and act as marionettes themselves.

Hazarika has brought to life popular comic strips and characters from animation films in her endearing muppets. In the process, she has also lit up a number of lives.

Hazarika has honed the skills of 25 talented children from the city’s slums, training them to make muppets and similar kinds of puppets. These children dress up as popular cartoon characters and stage muppet shows at birthday parties, trade fairs and other functions.

Muppetry is an extension of puppetry, where a muppeteer wears a mask and the matching costume of a particular character and brings it to colourful life.

“On an average, we participate in 90 functions every month across the region, mostly birthday parties, weddings and trade fairs,” said Hazarika.

“In my muppetry unit, children work day in and day out to meet the growing demand for muppet performances. I have picked up the children from different slums of the city. After I train them, they are employed in my unit,” she said.

Hazarika’s aim in forming a group comprising solely of underprivileged children is to teach these kids a skill to enable them to earn their livelihood in the future.

Children working in the unit are also happy at their new found empowerment. “I was a ragpicker. Hazarika baidew gave me training in muppet-making free of cost. Now I work in the unit and earn a decent amount. I am happy to work here and learn different kinds of crafts,” said Mukul Ali.

Most of the muppets are around five feet tall and dress up in attractive costumes. The big muppets are called Ronpa and measure up to eight feet in height.

Hazarika’s muppets shot to fame when she designed the character of ET for the mobile theatre play Extra-Terrestrial directed by Robin Neog in 2003 for Hengul Theatre. The play was the stage adaptation of Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg’s film of the same title.

Hazarika also runs a crafts school, Creative Hands, along with the muppet unit. She teaches children enrolled there the art of making artificial flowers, puppets, dolls and carpets, origami (the Japanese art of making paper objects) and costume designing.

A 10-day workshop on carpet-making is currently under way at Creative Hands.

Hazarika’s innovative ornaments, made of husk and jute, recently received wide appreciation at a crafts fair in Mumbai organised by Artfed, Assam.