It is a small place. More a village than a town. The streets are neat and lined by small, colourfully painted houses with thatched roofs. Outside one, an elderly lady is busy applying lacquer to a small wooden bird. She has already finished a whole flock and has a few more to finish. Lalithamma is 63 and has been making making toys since she married and moved to her husband's home as a young girl. Her father-in-law made toys. So do her sons.
We are in Channapatna, 60 kms. from Bengaluru, on the road to Mysore.
If you ever had a hand-made, lacquered, wooden toy as a child, chances
are it was from Channapatna.Toy trains. Colourful birds and animals.
Game sets. Your childhood abacus. The chettiar couple your mother takes
out for her bommakolu each navaratri. The ultra-chic candle-stands you
just picked up from FabIndia. They are all from Channapatna.
Michelle Obama picked up Channapatna's signature wares during her trip to India. Karnataka's Republic Day float on Rajpath was themed on the artists of Gombegala Ooru - Toy town.
No one knows how exactly this village took to making toys. One story goes that Tipu Sultan brought carvers from Persia, who passed on their skills to the locals. They haven't looked back since.
Some say, wrongly, that the carvers of Channapatna use ivory wood to make their toys. Ivory wood is a species of palm that grows in latin America. Another claim is that the toys are made out of the wood of a species called wrightia tinctoria. This is a shrub, with blue flowers belonging to the indigo family. What is true, is that the artisans of Chennapatna use soft, white wood to make their toys.
The wood is shaped using hand-held lathes and files, then smoothened into different shapes. The work is done mostly in small workshops, employing a handful of artisans. In recent years, larger units, with
mechanical lathes have been set up, but the work is still labour-intensive.
Hundreds of men and women are engaged in lacquering the toys by hand. Natural gum is first applied, followed by pain-staking painting using lacquer mixed with natural dyes. The toys
from Channapatna are guaranteed to be non-toxic and safe for children.
They are the only ones in India to be registered with the WTO with a
Geographical Indication. Along with Darjeeling Tea.
Text by Shankar A. Narayan Photos: Ministry of HRD, Government of India
Michelle Obama picked up Channapatna's signature wares during her trip to India. Karnataka's Republic Day float on Rajpath was themed on the artists of Gombegala Ooru - Toy town.
No one knows how exactly this village took to making toys. One story goes that Tipu Sultan brought carvers from Persia, who passed on their skills to the locals. They haven't looked back since.
Some say, wrongly, that the carvers of Channapatna use ivory wood to make their toys. Ivory wood is a species of palm that grows in latin America. Another claim is that the toys are made out of the wood of a species called wrightia tinctoria. This is a shrub, with blue flowers belonging to the indigo family. What is true, is that the artisans of Chennapatna use soft, white wood to make their toys.
The wood is shaped using hand-held lathes and files, then smoothened into different shapes. The work is done mostly in small workshops, employing a handful of artisans. In recent years, larger units, with
mechanical lathes have been set up, but the work is still labour-intensive.
Hundreds of men and women are engaged in lacquering the toys by hand. Natural gum is first applied, followed by pain-staking painting using lacquer mixed with natural dyes. The toys
from Channapatna are guaranteed to be non-toxic and safe for children.
They are the only ones in India to be registered with the WTO with a
Geographical Indication. Along with Darjeeling Tea.Text by Shankar A. Narayan Photos: Ministry of HRD, Government of India
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