Ranjani - Puppeteer in Delhi

Week 5, 6 and 7 Report (11th May to 1st June)

On 15th May I went and met Mr. IP Singh, who works with NDTV for their show Gustakhi Maaf, which uses puppets for political satire.

16th was the trip to Shadipur Depot along with a friend of mine, Sneha. That was quite an experience! I’m glad that Anand Foundation had arranged for us to meet Kailash Bhatt because he was extremely helpful throughout. I met Puran Bhatt first and then took Kailash’s interview. Since both of them come from different schools of thought, it was very interesting to understand their perspectives.

On 20th may, I made a trip to CCRT to meet Sampa Ghosh who looks after the puppetry workshops for teacher training there. Since Sampa Ghosh has written so much on puppetry and read extensively, her knowledge on the subject was evident and thus t was good to meet her.

I made rounds of Sangeet Natak Akademi , Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts, National School of drama, Russian Cultural centre, etc, to authenticate my listings about libraries.

One thing I’ve realized works well is saying you’re a Delhi University student and are doing a research project. More often than not people are happy to know that a student is researching on art and will let you pass through the more mundane formalities.

I’ve extended my due date by an entire week and my apologies regarding that. But the work is finally done.