Genius of puppetry draws tourists to Telangana

Thanjavur: Huge puppets from Telengana welcomed people of Kumbakonam near Mahamaham tank on Friday. Puppets, showcased by the Association for the Promotion of the Art of Puppetry and Arts (APPA), Hyderabad, were part and parcel of tourism promotion for newly created Telengana state.

Mrs.Ganjji Madhavi Latha, Secretary of APPA told DC that such puppetry promotion activities were conducted earlier in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala as well. Now tourism promotion is done in Tamil Nadu, she said.  “The newly formed state of Telangana is full of diverse destinations to visit and explore. APPA aims to promote Telangana Tourism with the help of puppetry. The main objective for this tour is, to use the ancient, colourful, communicative and lively art form of puppetry and promote the rich Telangana culture, its art forms" said Madhavi Latha. 

The promotional activities include road shows, traditional stage performances, depicting the tourist attractions in Telangana highlighting the comparative advantages of tourism in Telangana.” We designed larger than life puppets for this purpose. This project focuses mainly on visual impact. We carved out around 10-12 puppets to attract different groups of people. They become the cynosure of all eyes, wherever they are taken. People take selfies along with puppets through their mobile handsets" she said.

She also expressed the hope, that  these promotional tours  will be useful to formulate  suitable initiatives to protect and preserve the art of puppetry and also tourism and opening up required number of Tourism Bureaus run either directly under the control of Tela-ngana government or through franchise model. 

Madhavilatha has field level experience in art of puppetry for more than two decades. She is coordinating these performance tours by artists. She also happens to be a PhD scholar in the field of 'art of puppetry' and also recipient of the Sangeet Natak Academy's junior and senior fellowships in the field of art of puppetry. Her colleagues Eswari and Devdas, Adem Krishna and team accompanied her in the tourism promotion exercise in Thanjavur district.