Meena’s piece on ‘stupid’ toys resonated deeply as I was recently observing my young grandchild ‘play’ with endless possibilities offered by a discarded cardboard carton and corrugated packing material. From basement parking, a hideaway for stashing precious knicks and knacks, to becoming a bumpy road in a ‘rough road-smooth road’ scenario, the original contents of the package became irrelevant in the light of the child’s imagination, in which a host of exciting make-believe objects took on mind-boggling avatars.
Toys that adults may decry as “stupid” afford hours of enjoyment to a child. A toy is described as an object for play, especially for children, or a miniature replica of something real. Toys could be broadly classified on the basis of the material used, like wooden toys, clay toys, cloth toys etc., or the kind of play that they are used in like pulling toys, rattles, dolls and mechanical toys.
The fascination for such objects is as old as humankind is. The earliest toys were made from materials found in nature such as stones, sticks and clay. Anthropologists have found evidence of such toys dating as far back as there is a record of human life. Such toys have been unearthed at the sites of most of the ancient civilizations.
India has a long and rich tradition of such toys. The origins can be traced back to the Indus Valley Civilization. A wide range of toys have been discovered during archaeological excavations at different sites in Mohenjo daro and Harappa. These include clay figurines, dolls, carts and wheeled animals, as well as whistles shaped like birds, and toy monkeys which could slide down a string. These were made from locally available material, and many of these have lived on through the centuries, with some changes but retaining their essence. Today these are described as indigenous or ‘folk toys’.
India still has a living culture of indigenous toys. Traditionally these were linked with fairs (melas) and festivals where the artisans would themselves sell their own products. These toys usually fall in two broad categories—static toys and dynamic toys.
Static toys are those that are basically representational like dolls, figures of animals and birds, and models representing themes of everyday life. Many static toys often become decorative items, while others take on ritualistic associations. These include dolls and figurines of gods and goddesses, people, animals, birds and themes related to our day-to-day environment. They are in a variety of materials, clay, wood, metal, leaves, bamboo, or paper, often using established craft techniques.
Some of these figurines are a key element of the Dussera display in homes in the Southern states during Sankranthi or Navratri. Known as Golu (Kannada), Bommala Koluvu (Telugu) or Bommai Kolu (Tamil) these elaborate displays include a great variety of such dolls collected over generations.
The tradition of making these dolls continues in several parts of India. Colourful Channapatna wooden toys are made by a few families in Channaptna town close to Bangalore and Mysore, who continue a generations old tradition, where the designs and techniques are passed on by word of mouth from parents to children.
Kondapalli toys, lightwood toys painted in vibrant colours are made by artisans in Kondapalli close to Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh, depicting rural life, mythology, and daily life scenes.
Thanjavur toys from Tamil Nadu are roly-poly bobble headed toys made from papier mache or terracotta.
Asharikandi putola are traditional terracotta figurines of deities, animals and everyday objects, handcrafted by craftsman in a village in Assam called Asharikandi.
Almost every state in India has similar traditions and craftspeople who make such toys, but these are being eclipsed by the surge in mass produced toys, usually made of cheap plastic and often using harmful synthetic colours.
As distinct from Static toys, Dynamic folk toys create movement, change form, and make sounds. Such sensory stimuli are direct and clearly understood—which is the object of the toy. They illustrate simple themes derived from our physical environment. These toys provide simple entertainment and amusement for young children. They are simple in construction, but the design of these toys is based on the application of one or more basic principles of physics—the laws of mass and gravity, centrifugal force, simple mechanics, sound and magnetism. These toys are low cost, made of simple, everyday used materials like paper, cardboard, bits and pieces of wood, bamboo, metal sheets, wire, etc. Most of these are ephemeral in nature, lasting a few hours or days. Their themes are often humorous: a wrestler boxing, two men fighting, a joker dancing, an acrobat somersaulting, a sparrow chirruping and flying, a frog croaking, a bee humming, a horse galloping. All these themes fascinate young children.
Traditionally, such toys were associated with fairs and festivals where one could find vendors selling flutes and whistles, spinning paper wind-wheels, moving puppets, chirruping birds in motion, striking bamboo snakes, crawling paper snakes, rattles and drums, optical illusion toys, and more.
It is visiting such local melas that sparked in Sudarshan Khanna the curiosity to understand more about these objects that were simply considered as “child’s play”. Sudarshan Khanna embarked on a lifelong engagement with folk toys to become a pioneer in toy research and design. Among one of the first batches to graduate from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, and later as faculty there Sudarshan Khanna attended mela after mela, collecting, researching and documenting indigenous toys. He was fascinated that the makers of these toys were not formally trained engineers nor designers but they understood the mechanisms and design processes perfectly. Their products were usually eco-friendly, and always child friendly! These observations led him to encourage his ‘official’ design students to also work on toys as products, while he headed the Toy Innovation Centre at NID, one of the very few centres that offered formal programmes in toy making and design. Sudarshan Khanna’s documented work and his workshops and talks have contributed significantly to the revival in interest and conservation of folk toys.
Also a reminder that toys do not necessarily need to be ‘state-of-the art’ products, ordered online, and delivered packed in endless layers. Merry Christmas!
–Mamata
Millennial Matriarchs 