The art of story-telling

(I take hyphenation seriously)

Imagine a grown man sitting around with a large number of toys. Now imagine him very animatedly and quite seriously articulating various stories involving these toys, which he vocalizes with sound and fury, making them fly and fight, embrace and emote. Now, imagine him doing that in public.

That is what the puppeteer in wayang kulit does, simultaneously using both hands, and striking a rhythm with his foot.

That was my first, rather superficial and flippant impression of the performance at the Museum in Yogya.

Then I watched. And sat quite fascinated. The man probably is the last of untold generations of puppeteers. He probably DID grow up playing with these "toys", as unself-consciously then as he was now. I have no doubt he was one with the story, and with each and every character therein, and his unsophisticated singing and interjections came deep from a heart that beats for his craft.

Earlier that day, sheltering from the rain, I had met Yudi at his restaurant, close to the museum. He said he was a puppet-maker at the museum, the last in his family. His son doesn't want to do it. He turned up at the recital - he is a musician too, but it was not his shift. I felt sad that his art - and that of the puppeteer - would die.

Then, Yudi tried to sell me the puppets for 750,000 rupiahs.