In the midst of these India days, already so crowded with surprises, marvels, and chaos, there suddenly emerge during a single day three extraordinary men: a painter, an inventor, a puppeteer. Days later, as I remember them, I see each springing, chuckling, through a rent in the screen of the day-to-day, behind which, I imagine, jokester gods frolic and gentle creative souls seek refuge ….
The painter of miniatures, Narendra Mehta, twinkling eyes, that easy impish smile, more hair in that moustache than on his head, those agile dancing hands and fingers. He sits behind a shop counter covered with his work – camels, lovers, fanciful trees and palaces: images from Hindu and Rajasthan stories – his conversation turning serpentine between the here and far off. His granddaughter who makes him giggle and beam with love. The how’s of painting the fine line. The subjects and styles – there appear images that speak so strongly of 17thC Persia that I wonder if that’s Arabic or Hindi in the lettering. A grandmother’s ancient stories told each evening during his childhood. The meaning of the old legends and the gods … Ganesh for example, he of the big head (“good memory, intelligence, uses head,” says Narendra Mehta), two big ears (“hears more”), mouth under trunk (“less speaking, more listen”), big stomach (“digests more things … not more food but more things … ideas, experiences”), and “moves careful, deliberate, in no hurry when walking.” “You see?” he asks us, dimples deepening, eyes twinkling into ours.
“Fascinating isn’t it,” says the second man – short, slight, teeth askew and dark like a row of wind-beaten fence posts, a jello bounce in his shoulders and head, that eager voice, all energy waves – suddenly emerging from the shop-front’s shadows, his figure surrounded by a clutter of dusty objects with string pulls, tarnished coins and statuary, indeterminate tiny things under glass. I’ve been staring at a two-faced doll, paint-chipped, ear missing. “Do you know what this is?” holding out a small wooden tripod, delighting in our puzzlement. When we quickly give up, he sets his glasses on the tripod’s nose, suddenly giving the whole a classic Chaplin look, then flashes his leaning fence posts, gives a jello jiggle and raises his palms towards the ceiling. Now he holds out a wood block of many fitted pieces in one. “Can you take it apart? It’s simple. Very simple.” Like life, I think. And of course we cannot take it apart. “No one ever has.” Hehehehe …. The fence posts again, and those jello shoulders, as the wooden block falls into many pieces in his fingers. “Every seen one of these?” He reaches for three linked wire rings. Hehehe. He’ll never tire.
The puppeteer, the third man, leads me through a curtain into a brightly-lit profusion of colours, a small room crammed with hanging, sitting and tumbling together string puppets – folk heroes and heroines, character types, animals, fantastic creatures. He knows I’m wide-eyed. “I enjoy puppets a lot, but I have never been in such a place!” Can he describe who this character is? Is there still puppet theatre in Jodhpur? Does he have favourite stories? Favourite puppets?
“Would you like to see the Dancing Girl?” Of course. He vanishes through satin blouses, stripped trousers, a lion’s mane. I hear music, then he emerges, but he seems smaller, all hands and fluttering fingers, but even these seem small compared to Dancing Girl in ankle-length sequined scarlet dress, her torso now arching, bowing, pelvis now thrusting forward with the melody, feet now gliding forward over the floor, now spinning. “So graceful,” I offer. “You’re a magician.”
“Let me show you the joker,” says the puppeteer, disappearing, reappearing, a new figure stepping across the floor, grey trousers and pale maroon shirt, loose limbed, doing a kind of jig, high kicks, body flips, then one leg separates from his torso, then the other, then an arm and another, then his head, then one foot kicks the head, a hand slaps his flying knee, lips kiss foot (I’m laughing), a foot kicks at an invisible second figure, an arm embraces a phantom friend, the whole figure reassembling then flying apart again, but with such exuberance, playfulness, and changing moods, at once so divided, at war with itself, then making up, whole again. I clap. I have to see it all again. “A trickster,” I say. “Yes, yes a trickster.” “Can you do it again?”
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