{"id":408058,"date":"2024-03-03T18:49:09","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T17:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/doogreporter.com\/the-artists-of-kathputli\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T18:08:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T17:08:49","slug":"the-artists-of-kathputli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doogreporter.com\/en\/the-artists-of-kathputli\/","title":{"rendered":"The artists of Kathputli"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In old Delhi, not far from the modern city centre, there was a slum known to be an urban colony of street performers. Kathputli<\/strong>, as it was called, was home to the forgotten artists: magicians, puppeteers, acrobats, singers, acrobats, snake charmers, musicians, and shamans who once brought honour and fame to great India.<\/p>\n\n

Kathputli: an urban colony of street artists<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n

Kathputli was India’s most prominent street artist ghetto, an intertwined community sharing a space where art and magic took shape among the narrow colorful streets. Like other slums, Kathputli was also considered problematic, and not unjustly so. The lack of sanitation, running water and sewage systems made the lives of its inhabitants a constant struggle, but it did not prevent them from practicing what they were born to do, to step onto prestigious stages and perform in front of varied audiences.<\/p>\n\n

Kathputli, meaning puppeteer<\/em> in the local Hindi language, was not only the name of a slum, but also represented the art that has accompanied and continues to accompany these artists on many national and international stages. When in the early 1960s a group of artists from Rajasthan decided to settle here, there was not much in the area where Kathputli later arose. It was a suburban area dominated by dense vegetation. But as time went on, modern Delhi grew along with the urban colony. These two very different souls began to conflict over the years.<\/p>\n\n

\"Kathputli
Kathputli Colony – Delhi (India) – \u00a9Marco Marcone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n