Costume of puppets of Assam

The Natyashastra has categorized acting into four parts. They are—

1. Aharya (costume, make-up and scenic design),
2. Angik (bodily movements),
3. Vachik (speech) and
4. Sattivika (psychic states).

Without these four aspects, acting performance can never be completed.

“The dress and ornaments play an important role in the extraneous representation, which go under the aspects of Aharya Abhinaya.”^[1]

Puppets are decorated with ornaments. The puppets represent woman characters are decorated with Assamese traditional jewelry Jonbiri, Dholbiri etc. Decorated headgear in mythical characters and hat in modern characters are used if it seems needed. Costume and make–up is an important part of theatrical performance.

Costume plays many important roles in theatre. Costume defines a character. Puppetry is also not exception. Costumes for puppets are choose according to the demand of the story adopted from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata or other mythical stories. Nevertheless, while the puppetry group performs story of social issues and modern theme, the puppets are decorated with modern dress suitable to the character. Costume is the most important factor in establishing the personality of a character. Through costume, one can identify the character and classify it as poor, rich, old,young, good, bad etc. The puppet troupes of Satra’s have used modern silk cloth for the costume of puppets designed with Chumki, kangra, Selma etc. The costume is same to the costume of Bhaona performance. Troupes other than sattra arena also use satin cloth, modern silk cloth and different designed cloth for their puppets.

Costume of puppeteer

The puppeteers also wear a particular dress while they perform.The chief of the puppet group or Bayan wears dhoti and full sleeve shirt. Dhoti is a long cotton or silk piece of cloth worn by man as lower garment, which covers up to his knee. Bayana wraps a chadar or Gamocha around his neck. Assistants of bayana or chief also wear dhuti and shirt with sleev. Woman assistants wear traditional woman dress or chadar mekhela of Assam. Before performance, all the members of the group apply a round mark on forehead of chandan (sandal) powder on their forehead. The puppeteers believe that this mark protects the puppeteers from black magic and other unexpexted danger during performance.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Chattopadhyay Kamaladevi: The Glory Of Indian Handidrafts,Indian Book Company,1976,p:182.