Puppet Show - Vulture education and awareness program

Cattle owners are playing major role in conserving native breeds, prohibiting carcass poisoning, removing harmful drugs from the vulture food chain and leaving the safe carcasses to vultures. Arulagam is working to eliminate the harmful drugs totally from the vulture food chain and taking various steps to improve the status of vultures in Tamil Nadu. The organisation is also educating local communities about the importance of vultures and their role in ecosystem functioning.

Arulagam continuously engages local communities in various ways to identify and protect vulture nesting areas and its habitats with the guidance and support of the Tamil Nadu State Forest Department. As part of it, vulture conservation awareness programs through puppet show were organised by Arulagam at Kakkayanur and Burgur in Erode district on 27 and 28th April 2019 in association with Tamil Nadu Tribal Association and Sathyamangalam Environment and Wildlife Association (SEWA).

Reason for selecting the place - Anthiur and Bargur

Anthiyur is a small town situated in Erode district and deity worshipped is Gurunatha swamy. Every year horse fair (Kuthirai Santhai) is organized at the time of Sri Gurunatha Swamy temple festival in the Tamil month Aadi. Hundreds of horses of various breeds are exhibited in this fair. Other than horses, other domesticated animals like cows, buffaloes, dogs and some birds are also exhibited during the fair. This horse fair is famous not only in Tamil Nadu but also neighbouring state Karnataka. It is said to be organized right from Tippu Sultan period ie) from 1780 BC onwards.

Bargur is a breed of cattle native to the Bargur forest hills in Anthiyur Taluk of Erode District in Western Tamil Nadu in India. The cattle are usually moderate and compact in build and have brown skin with white patches, though full white and brown complexions are sometimes found.

Based on this, we chose Anthiyur and Bargur to conduct puppet shows.

Reason for selecting traditional puppet show.

Kaipaavaikooththu(கைப்பாவைகூத்து), is a kind of performing art based on shadow puppetry. It is said to be very ancient and was promoted during Maratha period in Tamil Nadu.  The puppet/doll is made out of cattle skin.  A team of musicians, singer/mimicry artists and performing artists conduct this theatrical show. In this shadow puppetry, Puppets are skilfully manipulated by performing artist according to the storyline. Mimics and music in the background add charm to the show. In almost all human societies, Puppetry is used both as a form of entertainment – in performance – and ceremonially in rituals and celebrations such as carnivals. 

Mr. Lakshmana Rao is a talented and hard-working artist from Nagarcoil. His family is one among the few families in Tamil Nadu which still engages in shadow puppetry. Mr..Lakshmana Rao, a senior artist played the main role in the Kaipaavaikooththu and gave the voice for the puppets standing behind the screen. He learned the art from his father and after his father he performing this show, their forefathers also did this performance.  He is a traditional artists performing this art for the past 40 years using the leather puppet.  He is an expert voice artist mimicking two to three different voices according to the character.  Another person in the team played Tabla and also they all sing songs along with additional instruments.
The Shadow Puppetry has found a place in recent Tamil Movies such as AZHAHI, DASAVATHARAM. Apart from its rare presence in day-to-day life, this art form remains a forgotten one. Hence, we have endeavored to utilize the skills of puppetry to conserve 'highly endangered' vultures in our region.

Day 1 - Saturday 27 April 2019.

Puppetry artist team arrived to Anthiyur at 4 p.m . Then we proceeded to Kakkayanur about 15 km far from Anthiyur. Before we reached the venue, the local volunteers were making arrangements for the programme.  The artist crew fixed the screens and did all arrangements using a cloth before the performance.  The program started with an introduction by S. Bharathidasan  He explained the programme and the contents.  The program started at 7.30 pm in a dark setting.  Welcome speech was given by Mr. V.P. Gunasekaran, President, Tamil Nadu Tribal People Association.

Initially the show started with some historical stories like Ramayana and Harichandra until people sit and settle. In between, they also cracked jokes and performed funny incidents to cheer up the crowd. By that time people sat and started watching. Then the team slowly switched to the theme to the programme, the vulture.  He covered aspects of vulture history, its importance, population status and population decline and causes, and threats of vulture by using rubber puppets on the screen. During the performance, he explained how the vultures die after ingesting cattle carcasses that were treated with the pain killer diclofenac and similar kind of veterinary medicines.  He explained about the drug and how it directly affects the kidney of vultures leading to death of the birds. On some occasions, a few disgruntled people add poison on the carcass of the cattle to kill the predators such as tigers. Vultures and other scavengers consume the poisoned meat and perishes. Thus the population of the vultures declined by 99 %. He concluded by saying that we have to protect the vulture for the healthy natural environment. At the end of the show Mr. S. Bharathidasan give a talk as a concluding remark.  He gave vote of thanks particularly the forest department and the village head for lending help to organize the programme.  After the show questions were raised among the villager about the program.  They said this is the first time they are watching an awareness program like this as well as KaipaavaiKoothu. They also said that they can understand the message from the show.

Nearly 120 people from different age group attended the programme. The show came to an end at 8.45 pm. The village peoples were very simple. Most of them didn’t have the facilities of televisions and social media, so they were easily attracted to this entertainment programme. So all are actively participated and really they enjoyed that. Then we had a traditional dinner made out of Ragi with dry fish curry. It was a memorable event to us also.

 

Day-2 - Sunday 28 April 2019.

For the second day we had planned to go to the village called Burgur and conduct the same programme with the performing team. Forest beat officers supported us to make the preparations.

We visited every house and invited local people for the programme. The show started 7.15 pm in front of the Mari Amman temple. Nearly 90 people participated. Show came to an end by 8.30 pm.

Summary

Conservation awareness education program using art as medium easily reaches people. In this program, shadow puppetry art which uses cattle skin for puppets was selected to convey the issues facing vultures. Shadow puppetry visually caught the eyes of the cattle-owning community and made them to understand about the vultures, cattle and drugs. We also believe that program like this revives the dying art forms, uplifts the livelihoods of the artists. Thus we achieved three goals in one program.