Ask the Delphic Oracle: Javanese shadow puppet theater

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Monday, June 18, 2012

Javanese shadow puppet theater

And now for something completely different : Javanese shadow puppet theater.

I have not had the opportunity to see Javanese shadow puppets or watch Javanese shadow puppet theater performances except on video, but these shadow puppet theater shows are in many ways similar to shadow puppet theaters in India and Thailand and are, I am told, quite popular in Java. While in Thailand, I saw shadow puppets on sale in many shops. I would have bought one too for our home here in California except that they were a bit too big to fit in our travel bags. Also, I am afraid of monsters.

Times of India readers would be pleased to know that the themes of shadow puppet shows are often of Indian origin. Shadow puppet shows in Thailand often have stories that are made up by the puppeteers from the Ramakien, the Thai version of the Ramayana. Shadow puppet shows in Java too have stories based in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. And so to round off this post, a shadow puppet theater show from the motherland.

Dude, where's my column?

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Anand Manikutty got his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology, something for which he still gets ribbed. He has pursued graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, the Harvard Business School and Stanford University. He is a technology entrepreneur and inventor holding over 15 patents in computer science and technology. He has over 15 research papers in computer science and engineering. He has also contributed to a textbook on strategic management. He splits time between Monterey and the crazy, exciting San Francisco Bay Area. He is working on this column in collaboration with Prof. Krishnan Shankar. Krishnan Shankar (Ravi to friends) is a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oklahoma. His professional trajectory started in Mumbai at Ruparel through Reed College in Portland, Oregon and the University of Maryland, College Park where he obtained his Ph.D under Karsten Grove in differential geometry. His latest creation is by far his best and most demanding: his daughter, Sophie Mallika, who renews his sense of the miraculous on a daily basis. Prof. Sankaran Manikutty was a Professor (with tenure) at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. His profession trajectory started in the Indian Railways where he worked for more than two decades. He obtained his Ph.D. in Strategy (an area that used to also be called Business Policy) at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. He joined as faculty at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and rose to the position of Professor. He is now retired from service. ~

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"Ask the Delphic Oracle" is a blog created for a Science/Technology, Mathematics and Innovation column of the same name for the Times of India Group. (It is now a spin-off from the newspaper columns and, what's more, has survived the demise of the Indiatimes.com columns section itself. The themes of the blog are Science/Technology, Mathematics, Innovation and Economics with American Studies as a focus area.) The blog is maintained by Anuradha, Anand Manikutty in collaboration with Prof. Krishnan "Ravi" Shankar. All columnists and opinion writers have been taken off Indiatimes.com, and so we will no longer be running there. At the same time, this blog has taken a life of its own and besides, there are some loose ends to tie up, not the least of which is a summer puzzle contest we conducted in association with the Stanford Math Circle. So, posting on this blog will continue, and our association with the Stanford Math Circle will continue as well.

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