It is difficult to distill Amrita Sher-Gil’s life into just sixty minutes. The life of the avant-garde modernist, a woman in the nexus of cultures, identities, and geographies, is nevertheless mysterious despite the abundance of literature on her.
Dadi D. Pudumjee, the creator of the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, had this difficulty. The puppeteer was not satisfied with creating a conventional, formal book; he was searching for a concept for his presentation on Sher-Gil. He discovered it when Shankajeet De, his co-writer, happened to see a picture of the artist at a café in Paris.
“I thought of utilizing something similar for the idea because in the picture, Amrita is sitting and talking, and there are a couple of males sitting around her,” he explains.
Five friends meet in a café to discuss an impending deadline in the production Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life Lived, which is one of the highlights of Delhi’s yearly Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival.
Their assignment? A Sher-Gil project. However, they become disoriented as they sort through the copious paperwork until the artist herself appears as a puppet to welcome them into her realm.
The presentation tells the narrative of the artist, who was born in Budapest in 1913 to a Hungarian mother and an aristocratic Sikh father, using live action, puppets, artifacts, music, and video projections. She spent several years living in Europe before passing away in Lahore at the early age of 28.
Research, such as two books authored by her late nephew and artist Vivan Sundaram and the book Amrita Sher-Gil: A Life by curator-historian Yashodhara Dalmia, brings the dramatic tapestry to life. “Because of her Hungarian heritage, the Hungarian Cultural Center also joined us in support,” Pudumjee continues.
The National Gallery of Modern Art and the Sher-Gil Sundaram Arts Foundation provided institutional assistance. “We are attempting to investigate Amrita’s true identity through the show… It is also evident from her diary entries and letters to her parents and friends that she was extremely focused. Even as a little kid, her preferences were very obvious. He claims that she also offered criticism on her own work.
Sher-Gil uses a lot of her own texts as the source of much of what she says (via her puppet). Video montages of her paintings are intercut with live performances by the actors of songs like Edith Piaf’s Hymn to Love and Endre Edy’s I Want to be Loved.
Pudumjee, whose Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival is in its 22nd year, feels that the discussions have a little bit of corny humor as well, or else it would come across as too much of a funeral.
“My idea behind working with youth and adults originates from Swedish puppeteer Michael Meschke, who thought that puppets should be a medium for expression rather than the main point of the spectacle,” he explains, despite the fact that his early puppetry lessons were traditional.
