Six-year-old Medha Dhir has just made a puppet, a fish at that. She's excited and is all set to tell her own story about the fish she has made. "My fish says I love you," she says with a sparkle in her eye.

Medha was one among the many children who gathered at the Kara puppetry karnival at Crossword on Saturday. At a two-hour workshop, kids were taught how to make puppets and tell their own stories.

Children love stories and learn a great deal by listening to them. They also fire the children's imagination and sharpen their thinking. Puppets can lend themselves to be the medium of expression for children's creative instincts.

"But children in the cities hardly get to see puppet shows. Puppets are a disappearing trend. Cost of hiring a venue and time are the main constraints in keeping the art alive," says Katherine Rustumji, CEO of Kara. 
The Karnival, first, engaged children in making puppets and then prodded them into telling their own stories. The theme was friendship and children were taught to make animals, dolls and other objects. "Once they have ownership over the concept, they automatically start giving life to that character," observes Katherine. Kara always tweaks its programmes to suit the taste of the modern child.

There were parents who were regulars at the Kara Karnival every year, as also others who had come there after hearing about it from friends and acquaintances.

Varsha Punjabi, who has enrolled her daughters — 10-year-old Karishma and six-year-old Navya - waits for the Karnival every year. She says: "Puppetry improves thinking in children. It's both an art learnt and story told."
Sujata Dhir, another parent who came with her six-year-old daughter says puppetry stimulates a child's imagination and transports them to a dreamland where they can give life to characters they've made.

Katherine reasons that children's access to stories is under a siege in these times. Parents have limited time and most often children are rushed between classes and tuitions.  "Story telling used to unite a community but the loss of stories today means that we are losing that sense of community," says Katherine, who believes that her Karnival is one way to restore the sense of community.