Puppetry and Folk Theatre of India: Forms and States

The correct answer is A, Rajasthan. Kathputli is the string puppet, or marionette, tradition of Rajasthan. The figures are carved from wood, painted in bright colours and dressed in long trailing skirts, and they are made without legs; the puppeteer works them from above with strings while a dholak keeps time and a sharp whistling sound stands in for the puppets' speech. Option B is wrong because the string puppets of Odisha are called Kundhei or Sakhi Kundhei, and Odisha is better known in this chapter for the shadow form Ravanachhaya. Option C is wrong because the string puppets of Karnataka are called Gombeyatta, which must be kept apart from the shadow form Togalu Gombeyatta of the same state. Option D is wrong because West Bengal is the home of Putul Nautch, a rod puppet form.

The correct answer is B, Andhra Pradesh. Tholu Bommalata is the leather shadow puppet theatre of Andhra Pradesh, and its figures are the largest of all Indian shadow puppets, made of translucent coloured hide so that the colours show on the screen; the stories come from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Option A is wrong because the puppet form of Tamil Nadu is Bommalattam, which combines the rod and the string techniques, not shadow play. Option C is wrong because the shadow puppet form of Kerala is Tholpavakoothu, performed at night in the courtyards of Bhagavati temples on the text of the Kamba Ramayanam. Option D is wrong because Maharashtra is known for the folk theatre forms Tamasha and Dashavatar rather than for a puppet tradition of this kind. Remember that the shadow form is identified in a question by the screen and the lamp, since the audience never sees the puppet itself, only its outline.

The correct answer is C, Odisha. Ravanachhaya is the shadow puppet theatre of Odisha, and it is the most austere of the Indian shadow traditions: the figures are cut from deer skin, have no joints and are left uncoloured, so only a plain black shadow falls on the screen, and they are smaller than the puppets of any other tradition. Option A is wrong because the shadow form of Andhra Pradesh is Tholu Bommalata, whose large coloured figures are the opposite of Ravanachhaya in every respect. Option B is wrong because the shadow form of Karnataka is Togalu Gombeyatta, where the size of the puppet marks the rank of the character. Option D is wrong because Bihar is associated with Yampuri, a rod puppet form in which the puppets are carved from wood in one piece.

The correct answer is A, Bihar. Yampuri is the rod puppet tradition of Bihar. Its puppets are carved from wood in one piece, without the joints that rod puppets elsewhere have, which makes them harder to handle and demands greater skill of the puppeteer. Option B is wrong because the rod puppet form of West Bengal is Putul Nautch, whose large figures are jointed at the neck and the shoulders and are worked from below by a puppeteer standing behind a screen. Option C is wrong because Assam's contribution to this chapter is the folk theatre Bhaona, based on the Ankiya Naat written by Srimanta Sankardeva, rather than a puppet form. Option D is wrong because Madhya Pradesh is associated with the folk theatre Maach, a sung form of the Malwa region.

The correct answer is B, Kerala. Pavakathakali, also known as Pavakoothu, is the glove puppet tradition of Kerala, and it borrows its costume, make-up and gesture from Kathakali, so the puppet heads carry the same towering head-dress and painted faces. The puppet fits over the hand, with the head on the index finger and the two arms on the thumb and the middle finger. Option A is wrong because the Tamil Nadu form is Bommalattam, which uses rods and strings together and is among the largest puppet forms in the country. Option C is wrong because Karnataka has Gombeyatta, a string form, and Togalu Gombeyatta, a shadow form. Option D is wrong because Andhra Pradesh has the shadow form Tholu Bommalata, and glove puppetry is not its known tradition. Among the four techniques the glove puppet is the smallest and needs no stage machinery, which is why it survives as a village and temple form rather than a court one.

The correct answer is B, Karnataka. Yakshagana is the folk theatre of coastal Karnataka, performed through the night in the open with towering head-dresses, heavy make-up and loud percussion, and its episodes are drawn from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas; the singer who narrates and controls the performance is the Bhagavata. Option A is wrong because Kerala's forms are Koodiyattam, the Sanskrit theatre, along with Chakyar Koothu, Krishnattam and the ritual theatre Mudiyettu. Option C is wrong because Maharashtra's folk theatre is Tamasha, built on lavani songs and the dholki, with Dashavatar in the Konkan. Option D is wrong because the street theatre of Tamil Nadu is Therukoothu, and its temple form is Bhagavata Mela. Yakshagana has two regional styles, the Badagutittu of the north and the Tenkutittu of the south of the coastal belt, and a question may name either in place of the form itself.

The correct answer is A, Gujarat. Bhavai is the folk theatre of Gujarat, also seen in parts of Rajasthan. It is played in open ground before a standing audience, its accompanying instrument is the bhungal, a long copper pipe, and its sketches, called veshas, are short and satirical, often aimed at caste and social custom. Option B is wrong because the folk form of Punjab is Naqal, a comic form performed by the naqqals with the bagatbachcha. Option C is wrong because Himachal Pradesh is the home of Kariyala, an open-air form played around a fire during Diwali. Option D is wrong because Haryana's folk theatre is Swang, a sung form that also appears in the Braj belt of Uttar Pradesh. The bhungal is the detail that identifies Bhavai in any question.

The correct answer is A, Bhikhari Thakur. Bidesia is the Bhojpuri folk theatre of Bihar created by Bhikhari Thakur in the early twentieth century. Its central subject is migration: the man who leaves his village for work in the city and the wife who waits behind, and the woman's part is traditionally played by a male performer called the launda. Option B is wrong because Teejan Bai is the best known exponent of Pandavani, the narrative Mahabharata form of Chhattisgarh performed with a tambura. Option C is wrong because Srimanta Sankardeva, the Vaishnava saint of Assam, wrote the Ankiya Naat plays on which Bhaona is performed. Option D is wrong because Gopal Singh Nepali was a Hindi poet and lyricist and had no part in creating a folk theatre form.

The correct answer is B, Srimanta Sankardeva. Srimanta Sankardeva, the fifteenth and sixteenth century Vaishnava saint and reformer of Assam, wrote the one-act plays called Ankiya Naat, and their performance in the namghar or the satra is called Bhaona. The plays are written in Brajavali, a literary language mixing Assamese with Maithili and Braj, and the sutradhar introduces and links the scenes. Option A is wrong because Madhavdev, Sankardeva's foremost disciple, is remembered chiefly for the devotional verse of the Naam Ghosa. Option C is wrong because Lachit Borphukan was the Ahom general of the battle of Saraighat in 1671, not a dramatist. Option D is wrong because Bhupen Hazarika was a twentieth-century singer and composer who received the Bharat Ratna posthumously in 2019. Bhaona opens with the sutradhar's invocation and the dialogue is sung as much as spoken, which is why the form is counted as theatre rather than as dance.

The correct answer is A, Jammu and Kashmir. Bhand Pather is the traditional folk theatre of Kashmir, performed by hereditary players called bhands. It joins sharp social and political satire to mime and dance, and the surnai, a reed pipe, with the dhol and the nagara, provides its music; the pather, or episode, is often built around a village officer or a landlord. Option B is wrong because the folk theatre of Himachal Pradesh is Kariyala, played in the open around a fire. Option C is wrong because Uttarakhand is known for the Ramman ritual theatre of the Garhwal region rather than for Bhand Pather. Option D is wrong because Punjab's comic folk form is Naqal, performed by naqqals with simple costume and quick repartee. The bhands traditionally perform at village fairs and at the Shivratri season, and the form is the oldest surviving theatre tradition of the Kashmir valley.