It was a gloomy foggy Delhi morning, as mornings in Delhi are wont to be this time of the year. The weather in the season of cheer, I thought sourly, wasn’t exactly super. Just then, I saw a child running past me, his face agleam with excitement. In his hand was an extendable toy snake, made of paper and bamboo. It was not a new design; I remember playing with them back in the sepia-tinted days of my childhood. What surprised me was that the same toy still appealed to a child of today, reared on high-tech Game Boys and Cartoon Network.
Just as I turned a corner, I saw the stall where the child must have bought his toy. It was a typical toy shop one sees in fairs, full of bright, inexpensive and easily breakable toys. Festooned with pinwheels, feathered masks and catapults, it delighted the eyes and instantly brightened up the morning. Manning the stall was Mahinder Kumar, toymaker. “These toys,” said he, gesturing behind him, “give so much happiness to children...have you ever seen the sheer joy on the face of a child running against the wind, pinwheel in hand?” Looking around his stall, watching the eager face of a child entranced by his toys, I could see what Mahinder meant. “That is why I believe in teaching more and more people to make such toys,” said he, “I hold workshops for children as well as design students in Delhi, training them in the craft of toy making.”
One of the easiest yet most interesting toys Mahinder makes is the Rotating Bird: “that’s why this is usually the first toy I teach kids to make,” said he. It was a paper bird, strung on what looked like a bow with an arrow. As I moved the arrow across the string of the bow, the bird solemnly danced across it, whirling and twirling to show off her colours. Another hit with children, said he, was the Kaleidoscope, made of broken bangles and three pieces of mirror. “Making these toys is a wonderful way for children to learn even complex scientific principles,” said he. While he was showing me these toys, the pinwheels caught my eye. The larger ones were four to a stick, all rotating in different directions for maximum effect. I began to wonder how I’d ever thought the morning was a gloomy one.
Mahinder said that he did good business providing birthday party favours. “This time, my gruesome skeletons are doing really well,” said he with gusto. The skeletons, mounted on a stick with an intricate backstage arrangement of strings were rather fun, I thought. Every time I twirled the stick, the skeleton moved its limbs in a sufficiently gross manner.
The trick, said he, was to keep innovating. “Children are the most discerning customers in the world. You cant fob them off with old designs!” said he, adding, “take these pinwheels for instance. Last time, I made sticks with a single pinwheel. Now I’m making sticks with four pinwheels, so children can see how different colours blend.” What he aimed to do, said he, was to get the child interested enough to badger his parents to buy him something: “and this is no mean task!” he grinned.
The canny toymaker had obviously been to lots of fairs, for words like ‘scientific’ and eco-friendly’ rolled glibly off his tongue. But how could I resist those beguilingly simple toys? I found myself buying pinwheels for all the children I knew, heading to a park where I could actually run with them and watch them whirl, and for a brief moment, recapture the innocence of my childhood.
