I made my way through narrow, twisting alleys, stepping carefully over open sewer drains, as I tried to keep up with the young man who was leading me to the home of Puran Bhatt, one of India’s best-known puppeteers. Neither GPS nor google could guide me. I was in the Kathputli colony – the magician’s ghetto of Delhi – and I was most definitely off the map.
I rounded a final corner and entered a low-roofed building where women were cooking over an open fire and washing clothes in buckets. Water sloshed across the cement floor under my feet as I ascended a tiny staircase up to a spacious and airy terrace. There sat Bhatt, puppet master and lord of his domain.