Amrita Sher-Gil's story on a string

A new show employs a mix of puppets, live action and objects to recount the life of the Indian modernist

- Deepali Dhingra

The play is part of Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival in Delhi.

Capturing the essence of Amrita Sher-Gil's life in a matter of 60 minutes is no easy feat.

In spite of the volumes written about the avant-garde modernist, her life remains an enigma—a woman at the intersection of geographies, cultures and identities.

This was a challenge for Dadi D. Pudumjee, the founder of Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust. The puppeteer was looking for a premise for his show on Sher-Gil but was not content with making a typical, formal treatise. He hit upon it after his co-writer, Shankajeet De, chanced upon a photograph of the artist at a Paris café. “In the photograph, Amrita is sitting and talking and there are a couple of men sitting around her, and I thought of using something similar for the premise,” he says.

In the show,