Bantwal: Kalladka Puppetry - 25 Years of Spreading Happiness
Mounesh Vishwakarma
Daijiworld Media Network - Bantwal (RD)
Bantwal, Apr 23: The puppetry troupe of Kalladka is on the threshold of its silver jubilee celebrations. It was founded by Ramesh Kalladka in 1987 and has introduced puppet shows in the cultural scene of undivided Dakshina Kannada district. It’s a new world that one finds at ‘Shilpa Sadan’ where puppetry is held in Kalladka. The puppets have humourous, happy, and serious faces and entertain people regardless of age.
The puppet procession during the youth convention held in Shimoga in 1986 inspired Kalladka to establish a puppetry troupe. The puppets created by Kalladka consist of kings, queens, Yakshagana style, beautiful women, and traditional musicians in the courts of kings.
The experimental puppet show held under the direction of Dr D Veerendra Heggade, Dharmadhikari of Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala, at Ujire in Bantwal taluk, during 1987 was a great success. Since then, Ramesh has not looked back. His fame grew to the extent that a puppetry show was essential for all functions, celebrations, weddings, literary, and cultural festivals. Due to this, its fame extended across the district and neighbouring states as well.
The dedicated puppet troupe is behind the success of puppetry. The puppet show staged during the 66th All India Kannada Sahitya Sammelan at Mangalore, 71st All India Kannada Sahitya Sammelan held at Moodbidri, Vishwa Tulu Sahitya Sammelan held at Ujire, Alva’s Nudisiri, ‘Hampi Utsav’, Mysore Dasara, ‘Karavali Utsav’, Vishwa Konkani Sammelan, Sai Baba Ashram–Puttaparti, Mumbai, and Kerala popularized the concept of puppetry by Kalladka.
His achievement in promoting puppetry has crossed the borders of states. Kalladka’s collection has large puppets that are used in Yakshagana, short-statured-puppets, winding-horses, peacocks, Tibetan lions, and other varieties of puppets.
Kalladka’s puppetry troupe known as ‘Kalladka Shilpa Gombe Balaga’ held a programme ‘Avalokana–Namana’, as part of the silver jubilee celebrations at Kalladka Higher Primary School premises on Saturday April 21.
Moodbidri Alva’s Education Foundation chairman Dr M Mohan Alva presided over the programme. RSS south–central region Pramukh Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat inaugurated the programme.
Local MLA B Ramanath Rai, as well as former MLAs Rukmaya Poojary and Padmanabha Kottary were present on the occasion.
A arts exhibition was held here at 11 am on Saturday as part of the silver jubilee celebrations.The procession of puppets was held at 3 pm on Saturday, followed by music and laughter session from 4 pm.
Avalokana – Namana, programme was held at 6 pm on Saturday. The dance recital by Koila Guru Ganesh arts troupe and comedy show by Abhinay artistes of Kalladka was held as entertainment programme.