Jorhat, Jan. 16: Puppeteer Abani Sarma has toured the state, visited a few places in India and even gone abroad with his puppet shows. He is, however, a disenchanted man.

Unsure about the future of puppet theatre in Assam, Sarma told The Telegraph that poor audience response, low returns and indifference of the youth indicated the extinction of this art form.

"My own son is not interested in lending me a helping hand or taking over because puppeteering does not pay. He is more interested in other forms of art like playing musical instruments," he said.

Sarma was happy that the response in Jorhat, where he had put up three shows daily at the recently concluded 15-day Assam Mahotsav, had been good. He said he had six boys to help him pull the strings but he needed at least eight hands. "The youths are not interested in accompanying me on the tours and I, too, cannot pay them most of the time," he said.

Sarma has more than 30 plays - most of them based on the epics and Puranas, a couple of them based on songs of Bhupen Hazarika. The voice, dialogues, songs and invocations are all Sarma's.

Swarsita Sarma, who saw one the shows, said people should come and see these shows in larger numbers. The puppet shows, especially for children, are educative as the stories are mostly based on our epics, he said.

A child at the show, however, said she was under the assumption that this would be something like the cartoons and was a bit disappointed "because I did not understand most of the dialogues".?

Sarma said now he had to compete with cinema, theatres and other forms of entertainment which use modern techniques and props.

"It is difficult to use such props and carry them around as most of the stages are makeshift and on a very small scale. People nowadays want to be entertained on a largescale," he said.

The puppeteer, who has received a prize from Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, hoped the government and the people would give more patronage to puppet theatre in the state to save the art from becoming extinct.

Sarma, who hails from Vijaynagar, Dakhala, near Guwahati, has also done shows in Spain and Russia.