“The coolest toys do not have to be bought; they can be built. In fact, sometimes the only way they will ever exist is if you make them yourself.” — Adam Savage, American designer-fabricator-actor-educator.
For those of us who have grown spending holidays in ancestral homes of grand-parents, especially in the rural areas, the knowledge of toys from shops was limited. Toys therefore meant anything and everything that was available on hand — they were the earliest lessons in creativity and resourcefulness.
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It seems a long time ago now, because toys (like most other things) have undergone a sea change — from handmade indigenous toys to robotic and remote-controlled ones, video games to apps on phones and more.
While these changes were happening, one man sitting in Ahmedabad not only thought about it, but decided to do something about it too. Designer, educator, pioneer in toy research and design, Sudarshan Khanna was the principal designer, chairman of Education and Research, and Head of Toy Innovation at the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad).
Khanna was among the first batch of post-graduates to pass out of NID. While he nurtured ideas to be a freelancer, it was not to be, because he was invited to join as a faculty member in 1970. And so, for 40-odd years, Khanna worked contributing hugely towards preservation, conservation and documentation of indigenous toys. Holding several positions of importance inside and outside India, Khanna held workshops, participated in inter-cultural exchanges. Numerous awards were conferred upon him.
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Khanna was here in the city recently with his daughter Surabhi (who is an architect and toy designer and a postgraduate from NID) to conduct workshops. One of the venues was Tara Books.
The workshop was an hour long and there were children accompanied by parents mostly. There were a few adults, including an art teacher of a well-known school. Knowing that the workshop was being conducted by Sudarshan Khanna, participants aware of his contribution and earlier work might have expected more than a paper whistle and a small insect/rabbit with ears that would flap when the tail end was tugged at. The level of complexity of the workshop, probably had something to do with their prior experiences at such sessions, where the participants did not even know how to tie a knot, an essential skill required in the making of several toys.
“We chose paper because it is an easily accessible material,” explained Surabhi. Also, the process is simple for the participants, who may not be equipped with skill sets that are required for other material. Anyway, the young participants seemed to love it. One young child caught my attention — a grade 3 student, working meticulously and independently. She even named the whistle after the dog she loves — Peanut Butter!
Understanding concepts
Khanna speaks about his long journey and love story with toys — designing and conserving. Though he started out rather hesitantly as a faculty at NID, he found himself enjoying the work environment and all it had to offer. His initial years were spent in observing and understanding the design concepts, material technology and so on . It was at this time that melas (fairs) fascinated him as an adult — he observed the different kinds of toys that were being sold — indigenous, inexpensive. What fascinated him was the fact that these toy-makers were not engineers/designers, but seemed intelligent and understood the design process perfectly and they understood the working of the simple mechanism of each of the toys they had created. He saw in the toys, a product that was user friendly, which lent itself to be worked on the design aspect and it had as its target audience, the most precious of all — children.
NID provided the perfect setting where his ideas could fructify. He travelled much, attended every mela, collecting, researching and that was when he also saw the need to document them. He encouraged his students to work on toys as a product and in 2001, he headed the Toy Innovation centre at NID which offered Post-Graduate classes in this direction. T
his was a major milestone because with the exception of Germany at that time, not many offered educative programmes in toy-making and design. Khanna inspired his students and communities of people across the globe conducting talks, workshops and exchange programmes.
“Preservation is like pickle,” adds Surabhi. That is what Khanna did to toys — he observed, analysed, reworked, re-designed and more essentially, documented it through the three books that he has authored, as also through his teaching. Says Khanna, “When you break a toy that you have bought from the shop, you end up trying to mend it, or just throw it. But, with a toy that you make, there is a joy of re-creating it.”
An entire generation of toy-makers and toys lives through his books and his education. Oral transmission has been part of our rich tradition and when the chain breaks, important facets are lost. A rich legacy is kept alive thanks to the foresightedness and dedication of people like Khanna.