Gothic swag on a string

Bengaluru’s busking scene has a new addition — gothic puppets that sway to rock, blues and EDM.

There’s a new street performer in Bengaluru and he’s nothing like anything you have seen. He’s about 20 inches tall and all skeleton, no flesh. He makes up for his scrawny appearance with his black tuxedo, punk hairstyle, and, yes, his dancing talent that he wields on rock and blues music, even EDM. Tap dance, he does that without missing a beat. Talk of swagger, he’s got that loads, MJ-style. He is also hilarious. Sometimes he sends his legs for a walk, while his upper body stays behind on the ground, tapping fingers and scanning the show left to right.

Meet Macha, a puppet straight out of a Halloween party scene, who’s been enthralling the crowds flocking to Bengaluru’s Church Street on weekends. Well, technically, he is Macha 2 because there’s Macha 1 too. This one comes in a witch-hood costume, yellow shorts and red bulbous eyes. You can see Machas and his puppeteer Chandru Shekar R rollicking on a pavement outside a cafe, located between the Brigade Road on its right and the M G Road Metro Station exit on left. They dance to progressive music and freestyle vocals belted out by artists on the good-old guitar, but also exotic instruments such as the Australian didgeridoo, the African djembe and the Jewish harp.

Street shenanigans

Machas, their master and these musicians in their 20s aren’t a band, but a bunch of buskers who come together to jam, improvise and entertain the public. And they do that well.

Having attended these gigs, I have seen passersby stop by and grow in circles, marvel at this tiny skeleton man and record his street shenanigans on their phone.

It’s not the first time that a puppet is shimmying to new-age music, but it’s not common either. Fragile Rock, for instance, is an emo puppet band from America, comprising rock musicians and puppeteers. A video of a ‘bare bone’ puppet in red shoes toting a guitar and banging his head to Rod Steward’s Young Turks clocked over half a million views in 2014.

This Bengaluru show happened by chance. Himal, a Nepali national who freelances as a videographer-editor in the city and sings and plays guitar on the side, begins, “After the lockdown was lifted, I started busking on Brigade Road and Church Street. One day, the owner of the cafe where we perform now, called me up and offered his space to do gigs. I chose to perform outdoors as it would attract more audience.”

Soon, he found company in another busker named Byraa. He is a multi-instrumentalist from Bengaluru who leads a vagabond life. Next came Milan Sharma. He is a bass guitarist from Sikkim who had started selling tea in the area as the pandemic took away his shows.

Intriguing backstory

The group grew to four when Shekar, another busker looking for audience on Church Street, started animating his Gothic puppets to the tunes and beats they dropped. This happened around November and listeners have been milling around since then.

More intriguing is the backstory of Macha. He was born out of a horror film script that Shekar wrote, but failed to find producers for. “So I decided to turn the characters from that film into puppets. I feel very satisfied performing on the street. Unlike a stage show, the audience can watch the puppets up and close and I can see how much they enjoy it. It’s another thing that I don’t understand their language beyond ‘Good Job’,” says the 42-year-old in Kannada, humbly. But, street shows are never without their risks. The other weekend, a kid was seen heckling Macha 2 with a corn and pouncing on the strings. “The kid was trying to compete with Macha, but I managed to keep him together,” he recalls.

Given how deftly Shekar controls these Machas from head to toe, it’s hard to believe that he started making puppets only three years ago. Yes, puppeteering is a side hustle. The Class 5 dropout works as a tailor, but hopes to become a filmmaker someday.

So what’s next on the Macha mania? “I want to get permission from the authorities to perform in Cubbon Park and Lal Bagh,” says Shekar. “I also want to make one that will go with the beats of djembe (a goblet drum from West Africa). I get goosebumps listening to it,” he says.

As for the musicians, Byraa has gone on to join new buskers on Church Street while Himal and Milan have stuck around. But, what remains constant to their gigs is this scraggy street dancer who lends a new charm to street music.