Y. K. Padhye Biography 
Y. K. Padhye was an Indian Ventriloquist who started ventriloquism in India in 1920's. He was one of the pioneers of this piece of art and has made puppets for such shows. He is also known as a puppeteer. Now it’s the third generation of ventriloquism and both his son and grandson, Ramdas Padhye and Satyajit Padhye are equally successful in this art and have popularized it all over India as well. His daughter-in-law Aparna has also assisted her husband for many puppet shows of Doordarshan during 1980’s. Y. K. Padhye was also a famous magician and has conducted several magic shows in India. He brought puppets from England and introduced ventriloquism and puppet shows to India for the first time. His famous puppet "Ardhavatrao" was used by Jubilee Kumar, Rajendra Kumar for the Hindi movie, Akeli Mat Jaiyo.
Y K Padhye is regarded as the pioneer of puppetry in India, who brought this technique to India at a time when it was not popular yet. Ventriloquism is the sophisticated form of puppetry. He was a well-known magician then and he slowly entered to the world of puppets to entertain crowd, particularly children. In the 1930’s he started performing ventriloquism with two masks as he had no puppets. He brought two puppets from England. He named one of them, Ardhavatrao and it was very popular in those days. Ardhavatrao also appeared in the movie, Akeli mat jaiyo.
He gained attention from public by doing stage shows with a combination of magic and puppets. He brought more puppets as well as a book from England to learn about its technique. The lively puppet shows were extremely successful as Indian audience has never experienced it before. He got offers from filmmakers also. Now his generation is still entertaining crowds with puppets and the art of Ventriloquism.
Published: N/A
Updated: January 27, 2014
