Did you know that some of the toys sold as handmade Kondapalli toys might be machine-made replicas in a mix of wood and plastic?
Made-in-China imitations masquerade as original Kondapalli toys and are found even in the stores in Kondapalli craft village, Andhra Pradesh, reveal Abhihaara Social Enterprise co-founder and CEO Sudha Rani and Institute for Advanced Studies in Complex Choices (IASCC) co-founder Chitra Sood. The IASCC and Abhihaara mooted a training programme for women of Kondapalli in the summer of 2022, with the aim to revive Kondapalli craft.
So far, they have trained 15 women to chisel, carve and design Kondapalli toys using the malleable tella poniki (white sander) wood, and polish and paint the toys using natural dyes. The products range from Hanuman dolls for cars, decorative bullock carts, village occupations and Dasavataram sets for bommala koluvu (doll displays for Navaratri celebrations).
The products are priced upwards of ₹500 and are stocked at the Green Craft Store in Kondapalli village, Lepakshi, and Golconda handicraft showrooms run by Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments, respectively.
Participants at the training workshop in Kondapalli. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
IASCC and Abhihaara hope to train at least 100 women to make the project self-sustainable. As production steps up, the products will be available on e-commerce platforms.
Ms.Sudha, who has been working with handloom clusters in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, observes that in early 2020, only two or three families were making traditional Kondapalli toys: “Not many craftspersons follow the older technique of using natural dyes. Synthetic dyes took over in the last three decades.”
The need for a training programme to revive the craft was felt. The IASCC, co-founded by Anil K. Sood and Chitra Sood, stepped in to help. They roped in veteran craftsman Kottaiah Chary who is adept at using natural dyes for Kondapalli toys.
Chitra Sood and Sudha Rani Mullapudi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A workshop was set up in Kondapalli and the women were given a monthly stipend of ₹4,000 during the six-month training programme. Abhihaara leveraged its marketing network and orders came in. The government-run showrooms and corporate groups such as Coromandel and Lanco placed bulk orders. “These orders assured the women of revenue for at least six months,” says Ms.Sudha.
The training was multifold — chiselling and carving the wood to design, with an eye for details and then colouring using natural dyes. Earlier, chiseling and carving were considered male domains. Pointing to a table accessory dyed in green hues, Ms.Sudha and Ms.Chitra state that the pigments obtained from bottle gourd leaves go through a special process to extract the colour; the dye has to be prepared fresh and cannot be stored. Different processes are followed for different colours.
One of the Kondapalli products, handmade and coloured with natural dyes | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“We now have a training model and the marketing knowledge that can help revive the craft and motivate the younger generation that has migrated to the cities to return and take up the craft,” says Ms.Chitra.
The demand is higher than supply at the moment. The roadmap is to train more men and women to design Kondapalli toys. Ms.Chitra points out that there is scope in the educational sector as well: “Kondapalli toys designed as alphabet blocks can be used as educational tools for school children. When a craft can put food on their table, artisans will not move away to take up other jobs. They will embrace it with a sense of pride and ownership.”
