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I met him hawking his puppets on the dry dusty street of New Delhi called Parajhana. He spoke English and had been to Europe and performed with his puppets there. He invited me to see the section of town where the performers lived. We took a loud local subway, tight with bodies and turbans and halted under a bridge and suddenly I was in a different world, the Kathputli Colony meaning " the colony of wooden puppets". He turned down a side street walking fast and I had to run a little to keep up and watch my feet as we jumped over open sewers and water lines. The buildings were old and the bricks worn and jewel colored paints shined through in peeling layers. I could hear the drummers and we passed people in bright costumes with small mirrors sewn into their clothes glittering in the sunlight. There were magicians charming wide eyed children and acrobats balancing on tightropes between houses . I watched a boy doing flips over cobblestones laughing. They stared at me with their thick eyeliner and twirled mustaches, I smiled and they nodding at me. The children were thin and the mothers drawn and he said " Ours is a dying art and I don't know if I am of the last generation of performers, I think I may be" His home was clean, painted the sky blue of Rajasthan, one room, 2 trunks of puppets and a few mattresses and blankets stacked in the corner. Outside was a small rounded fireplace for cooking and a water tap.The family sat in the courtyard of white cement under the hazy sun bending over puppets, sewing the recycled saris into long dresses and headpieces. The mother had 8 children surrounding her in a dizzy array of color and moving bodies. A boy sat practicing a drum in the corner with his brow drawn tight and his eyes closed and he hummed. Her daughters sewed with her with broken scissors and dull needles. She smiled and I admired her handwork. The children danced around me swirling in bright clothes, smiling and laughing touching my hair, their eyes dark and carefree. He pulled the puppets out as if they were precious jewels from the trunks telling me their story and who had made them. He said for 6 generations the performers had lived there coming from the desert in search of a better life. When he talked he made the puppet move and the daughter sang a haunting song of the beauty of the desert wind that stir the feet to dance despite the heat. He spoke of the passion for his culture and his fears for it loss, while we sipped strong bitter spiced tea made rich with milk and smoke from the dung fire. all the while a lone flute whispered somewhere over his walls it's notes joining the smoke rising from each courtyard. He was a rich man in his neighborhood having a house that had been passed down since the 1930's in his family. He told me he worried and drank to forget sometimes and did I worry too? He said the city wanted to bulldoze the neighborhood but, they were fighting back and I wonder if it still stands? W toured the neighborhood and he introduced me as the Californian and the younger people asked me about various movie stars. They were many small cottage industries there, most related to the arts and toys and they were beautiful in the simplicity. To walk there and see how much their culture meant to them moved me. I felt what a hard but rich life they lead. They did not want to leave their arts,even though their place in the modern world was disappearing. To carry the tradition of art for love was their wish. It is a noble vision of art and history and why I travel. To see something outside of my small world changes and enriches me. We lived thousands of miles apart the puppeteer and I,but for a few afternoons while the hot winds blew we talked and laughed like family and the music made me want to dance with joy.