Lohardaga (Jharkhand) (PTI): For craftsmen of wooden toys at Lohardaga in Jharkhand, the ban on Chinese ones has come too late.
Toy carts, dancing dolls, cars and toy musical instruments like drums and flutes made of wood has become a dying industry. "When inexpensive foreign toys hit the market, our business began to dwindle. Now most craftsmen have switched over to carpentry, stone-crushing or work at brick klins," 65-year-old Jalweswar Mistry a toymaker-turned-carpenter of Jima village of Kuru block in Lohardaga district, said. Jaleswar, who now makes rolling pins for a living, said the advent of low cost plastic and metal toys spelt the death knell for wood toy makers, whose products were relatively expensive. Another important factor which led to the decline was that sal and teak wood required as raw material for the toys was no longer affordable following restrictions by forest department authorities, he said. "Foreign toys are cheap, but the ones we made of wood were more expensive. People settled for the cheap variety making it difficult for us to make ends meet," he regretted. The factory of Maya Organic (an NGO that helps workers of the informal sector) at the Channapatna unit was an eye-opener. Workers, young and old, chip away on power lathes, and make those beautiful toys that we buy from Emporiums in Bangalore and Mysore. Channapatnada bombe haagey is an oft-used phrase in Kannada. (Meaning: Like a Channapatna toy). The town, an hour�s drive from Bangalore, on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, is indeed toy city. And with a Geographical Indication (GI) certificate accorded to the craft of toymaking, Channapatna is officially bombegala ooru. And so I landed in this town with a mental image of an old artisan sitting quietly in a corner chipping away at a piece of wood, and making those exquisitely coloured traditional dolls. That was not to be. Like the rest of India, things have changed in this town, where if historical references are to be believed, Persian toymakers were roped in by Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan. The factory of Maya Organic (an NGO that helps workers of the informal sector) at the Channapatna unit was an eye-opener. Workers, young and old, chip away on power lathes, and make those beautiful toys that we buy from Emporiums in Bangalore and Mysore. Girish, who has been working on toys for the last 18 years, explains, �We are a family of toymakers. My father, now, 74 years old, my brother, all of us, have been working on making toys.� So, how have things changed over the years? I ask. �Things have changed. Earlier, people would work on hand lathes in their homes, or hire lathes, and then we would go to the toy emporiums and sell our toys. Life was difficult because we had to make ends meet on a daily basis. Now, with the factory, things are more streamlined, and it is no longer a daily wages thing. Also, back then, we would make saada bombe (plain toys).� Indeed, the artisans have changed with changing times. All the toys are made out of vegetable dyes, of much appeal to Western markets, and the names are certainly fancy ones. Gogo and Toby! Exports are the mainstay of this industry, explains Nasreen Taj, who has been with Maya Organic from the last ten years. Also, there are collectives in villages around Channapatna, for instance Neelasandra, where a handful of artisans work on beads. That is the only piece of work where hand lathes are used. Otherwise, the machine has taken over, she explains. There was a time when the market had hit a trough, but with Western markets turning towards India for toys that are safe (think lead laden Chinese dolls, which created quite a controversy), the Channapatna toys are back in business. Or so we thought. An enquiry at a Handicrafts Emporium within the town brought a new perspective to the toy story. The owner explains that while there are huge export orders, there is always the fear that such bulk orders get rejected even if there is a slight fault in one of the toys. And in the non-tourist season, on ordinary weekdays, there are not many people who actually buy toys from such shops in the town. And so, there is diversification, from the traditional toys to metalware, to incense sticks to sarees. But, when you see a lot of young women who have just passed their SSLC and PUC, working at the factory, you realise how much the toy story has helped them become independent and empowered. These women are no longer mere Channapatnada bombes, they earn their living through these toys!
