Message for the World Puppetry Day
19. World Puppetry DayBy Ranjana Pandey
The Sea
The Sea always carried storytellers and their stories from one shore to another, from one island to the next, from one continent to many. The stories swirled together, marinated in many cultural stews and became magical and immortal.
It is the stuff of stories since the beginning of time, full of sea dragons, mermaids and many fantastical creatures.
It is through these waterways that princesses and pirates, sailors and traders took trousseaus of wealth, entourage of craftsmen, court jesters and exotic produce and, of course, the great mythologies like Mahabharat, Ramayan, Sagar Manthan, Sindbad the Sailor, Journey to the West, One Thousand and One Nights...as they travelled from one culture to the next.
The stories changed with each telling, gathering subtle layers over centuries.
Entertaining, distracting, feeding the souls of travellers, adventurers, villains and heroes from distant unfamiliar lands.
The Sea remains magical and mysterious, touching the lives of millions on this planet. It feeds, sustains, and inhabits the imagination of all. The Ocean is the force from which all life on this planet emerged.
But today's reality is poignant. The sea is our last frontier today – the last frontier between us and annihilation of life as we know it. Today the sea is polluted, gasping for life, strangled by nets of greed and neglectful waste. It has been reduced to a garbage filled soup of dying corals and marine life. Each one of us is in some little way is part of this sad reality.
Here then is a challenge to all of the story tellers of today to revive the respect for the Seas of Earth – our only home.
Let us put our collective talent to the task. Right Now!
Ranjana Pandey
