IWN News

Kerala’s Ancient Shadow Puppets Now Tell the Story of the Whale Shark

Shadow puppet of the Ramayanam by Tonynirappathu, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

IWN Report — Wednesday, 14 October 2026

An ancient shadow-puppet tradition that usually retells the epics has been handed a fish as its hero, in an effort to get schoolchildren thinking about how to protect the largest fish on Earth.

The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), a conservation NGO, staged a Tholpavakoothu performance on whale shark conservation at Sree Narayana Boys High School in Kanimangalam, Thrissur, Kerala, on 10 October, working with the school’s Seed Club and Eco Club. According to WTI, the show was part of Wildlife Week 2026 and involved students and teachers from both the boys’ and girls’ Sree Narayana high schools.

AI Image

WTI describes Tholpavakoothu as “one of the earliest forms of visual storytelling”, a form that normally draws on Indian epics and mythology. This time the puppets carried a message about why whale sharks need protection and the part coastal communities play in it. Students were also introduced to different types of puppet and discussed how visual art forms can feed into contemporary education, and the programme was inaugurated by the Tholpavakoothu artist Rajeev Pulavar, whose father, Ramachandra Pulavar, received a Padma Shri in 2021.

Tholpavakoothu has its mainstay in Hindu temples across central Kerala, where troupes traditionally stage the medieval Tamil Kamba Ramayana, Onmanorama has reported. The art has taken on modern subjects before. Non-Ramayana productions began in 2004 with Gandhikkoothu and later included shows on AIDS awareness and against alcoholism.

The whale shark has been listed under Schedule I of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 since 2001, after WTI and the filmmaker Mike Pandey lobbied for it, according to WTI, whose project page gives the species’ global IUCN status as Endangered. WTI began a whale shark campaign in Gujarat in 2004 and formally launched its conservation project there in 2008 with the Gujarat Forest Department and Tata Chemicals. Fishers in Gujarat who cut their nets to free a trapped whale shark are reimbursed.

WTI says more than 1,100 whale sharks have been rescued and released along India’s coast. Its work in Kerala and Lakshadweep began in 2017 and reached Goa in 2025. In Kerala, WTI records the first fisher-led rescue and release in Malappuram in 2018 and a second in Calicut in 2020.

Sources: Wildlife Trust of India: Shadow Puppetry Show Brings Whale Shark Conservation into Focus (13 October 2026) · Wildlife Trust of India: Pan-India Whale Shark Conservation Project · Onmanorama: How Kerala’s puppetry has emerged from the shadow (2019)