INDIAN TOYS & TOY MAKERS: Our Design Heritage

In India there is a living tradition of indigenous popular toys. Yet despite it’s great worth and value, this area of crafts for children is among the most neglected parts of our cultural heritage. My interest in the development of Indian toys grew from a differ-ent angle. I used to teach a course in Material Manipulation for design students at the National Institute of Design (NID). We often looked for simple examples of good mate-rial usage and discovered that traditional mela toys, particularly the ones that move or make sounds, were remarkable examples of the creative and thoughtful use of materi-als. In the process, we also found that many of our simple toys had far more to offer in terms of fun and learning. Traditionally, such toys were associated with fairs and festi-vals. For most children, toys sold at the melas were the only playthings that they could afford. But all this is radically changing. About 15 years ago, I visited the Janmashtami mela at Ahmedabad for the first time. This is a big street mela organized at Dilli Darwaza, a prominent location in the old part of the city. Walking through the milling crowds, one noticed that toy makers were sell-ing an amazing variety of toys There were at least a hundred toy sellers, most of who