Not Just A Doll House, It’s Window To Our World With Lessons For Kids

Capital’s 57-Yr-Old Museum Depicts Life In 85 Countries, Has 7,000 Dolls

- [e-mail]

New Delhi: A family sitting for a meal and relaxing in their living room; a woman carrying two fagots of lavender grown in the upper part of south-eastern France’s Provence region; people on shikaras; and a bride from Turkmenistan—these are not simply disconnected scenes but a part of what the over 7000 dolls at Shankar’s International Dolls Museum depict.

From Russian dolls dressed in embroidered tops and flaring skirts to Japanese ones in royal kimonos and samurai uniforms, donning various hairstyles, or flamenco dancers from Spain, the dolls museum housed at the Children’s Book Trust building on Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg is a gateway to a magical world for children and adults alike.

Set up by celebrated political cartoonist, K. Shankar Pillai, the museum boasts ofa huge collection of costume dolls in the world. It had all begun when Shankar received a costume doll from the Hungarian ambassador in the early 1950s.

The cartoonist’s daughter, Yamuna Shankar, who is a trustee of Children’s Book Trust, recalls: So fascinated was he with his Hungarian doll that he began collecting dolls whenever he went abroad. Soon, he had a collection of about 500 dolls which he decided to exhibit at various places in India along with paintings done by children.”