All Barbied and Poohed out...

Last week, I set off with great enthusiasm to find a toy for my 2 year old niece, who's visiting from the U.S. I'd thought to buy her something age-appropriate, something that she could amuse herself with, but also something that would help her take back some "Indian culture" and/or something that her parents wouldn't be able to easily get for her in the States.

So, I land up at a swanky new store which carries books, toys, gifts, dvd's, etc. The store is wonderful to walk and browse through, with lots of interesting gifts items, and I wasted some time looking through the adults gifts section, just because it was fun to look at the various items they had. But when I entered the childrens' toys section, the only brands that I could see were Barbie (in abundance), Fisher-Price, Disney, etc. There was hardly anything there, that would not be available in a U.S. department store or toy shop. It seemed a waste, to pay a not-insignificant-sum of money to buy a toy here, when these same toys would also be available at a neighborhood toy store in the U.S.. So, after spending a good part of an hour browsing through many versions of Barbies, Poohs, Disney Princesses and the like, I finally decided not to buy any.

While it's nice that we have all these imported toys available in India now (for the folks that can afford them), wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if we also manufactured and marketed similar, high-quality toys that used Indian characters and figures as their basis. So, I tried to think of Indian figures that could be used for similar types of toys, and the ones I could think of, were in the following categories

1. Gods or figures from mythology
2. Historical kings/queens and heroes/heroines
3. Freedom fighters, political leaders
4. Music/cultural artistes
5. Bollywood/Film stars

Thus, I started seeing at least one difficulty of having such toys (although I doubt that toy manufacturers have gone through the lengths of thinking through this :-)). With all of the religious and regional sensitivity that is currently prevalent, most toys in the above categories would incite ire from one community or another, either because a toy "hurt their sensibilities" or because their community was not suitably represented by a toy, especially if a similar other community was. So, maybe it's just as well that we choose between a Pooh or a Cinderella, rather than between Akbar or Ashoka... And as for category # 5, I'd rather not see any more of the film industry than what we already get inundated with.

Incidentally, I also browsed through books, and there definitely are many books available, on Indian mythology and by Indian authors, for older children, but not too much of a selection in the 2-year old category. However, some of the Indian publishers have brought out nice picture books on fruits, vegetables, animals, etc. Again, I wish they would have had names in Indian languages for the pictures. I did find two such books (on fruits and flowers) with nice bright pictures, and with English and Indian names, which I immediately lapped up!

Finally, at our local 8ftX8ft age-old, small toy store, which is packed with toys from top to bottom and left to right, I did find Ganesha and Hanuman as stuffed toys(I suspect that these were made primarily because of the respective movies). And since, in this case, I didn't need to worry about secular sensitivities, the baby got a stuffed Ganesha - rather nicely made and adorned with jewelry (although that makes it a little less kid-friendly). Of course, it was immediately upstaged by another gift that the baby got - a musical jumping and squawking cross between a rooster and a duck! Now, if only the stuffed Ganesha had been enabled to dance and sing... :-)

If I can something helpful say....

If I can do some good today,
If I can serve along life's way,
If I can something helpful say,
May this blog do its bit, pray...