The Impersonater

The Behrupia or the impersonater is a person who dresses up like someone else to show himself to be that person.

The artists use a variety of costumes and lots of make up to achieve this. Alongwith the getup, their body language and behaviour also needs to be modified in order to achieve a realistic look.

As you can see in the adjoining picture, the impersnaterere has taken the appearance of the "Ardhnareshwar" which is the depiction of the Hindu God Shiv and the Goddess Parvati as one soul with two human forms. This is based on a Hindu belief and philosophy that God is both male as well as female.


In this picture, you can see one what apears to be a person with another person on his back. However, the look has been achieved by a single artist with the help of props and stature.

Here are some more examples-





We hope you liked it!

Papier Mache

Although paper mache comes from the french language, the technique has been used widely by artisans the world over in many different regions to make a variety of items ranging from paper mache boats, masks,toys and many other things.

In Early India it was used to decorate shields and armour. Now, paper mache boxes, toys and decorative items are more commonly made and sold in India. The children of the artists and artisans working in Katputhli colony in New Delhi are taught how to make paper mache items which they can later on sell for money.

Here are some of the items they have made-











Do let us know what you think!

The Beginning

Hi,
this blog has been created by a non governmental organisation in India by the name of Sarthi. The organisation works for the upliftment and help of the artists of India. Its goal is to preserve all the art forms of the country whether it is in the field of folk or classical dance music, magic, puppeteering, street performances, crafts.

In this blog, we will provide an update on what the artist families- children and adults alike have been upto and the events that we are organising. We also want to share news about the different programmes we run for these people. To find out more about our operations, you can visit the sarthi website below-

www.sarthi.org

So lets see how it goes!