Mysuru’s museum of doll displays
It is that time of year when Mysuru comes alive. The city wears a festive look. Homes are opened to visitors to admire displays of dolls. And everyone has only one word on their lips: Dasara!
A new museum opened in the city last month. Fittingly, it is a museum of dolls. The Kaladevi Doll Museum has been set up by Ramsons Kala Pratishtana. The huge collection includes about 5,000 dolls from different parts of India. And every one of them carries a rich history of identity, crafts and community.
The tradition of a public celebration of Dasara goes back to at least the 15th century. Vijayanagara kings celebrated the festival with great pomp and pageantry in Hampi. The locus of the celebrations was probably the monument we call the Mahanavami Dibba in the royal centre. The tradition was adopted and continued by the Wadiyar kings, first in their capital Srirangapatna and later, when the capital was moved, in Mysuru.
We do not know exactly when the domestic tradition of displaying dolls began. But as the scholar Vasudha Narayan writes in her essay Royal Darbar and Domestic Kolus, the very word used to describe the display – kolu, golu or koluvu in different south Indian languages – means durbar or royal presence. Scholars suggest the tiered arrangement of dolls mimics Hampi’s multi-level Mahanavami Dibba. Alternatively, perhaps it simulates the stepped seating at the Mysuru royal darbar.
The royal link is reinforced every year when women begin setting up their display with two wooden dolls called pattada gombe, representing a king and a queen. In many communities, mothers gift these simple dolls to their daughters when they get married. The Kaladevi Museum has several pattada gombe in its collections. Traditionally, these dolls were made of red sanders, a wood believed to have medicinal properties. For minor injuries, one could make a quick salve by rubbing the wood on a wet stone. “So the mother is giving her daughter a medical kit when she gifts her these dolls,” quips art historian Raghu Dharmendra, the museum’s curator.
Distinct exhibits
One of the museum’s highlights is the diorama depicting the 1939 Mysuru Dasara procession. These wooden dolls are modelled on archival sketches and photographs, and the murals in the Kalyana Mantapa of the Mysuru Palace. Audacious in scale and meticulous in execution, it is still a work in progress, according to R G Singh, secretary, Ramsons Kala Pratishtana. The exhibit currently has about 950 dolls lined up against a wooden model of the Mysuru Palace. Another 1,000 dolls are in boxes, waiting to be displayed. When completed, the procession will have 3,000 dolls.
The delight here is in the details. For example, you might notice how one particular elephant in the parade is draped with a richly decorative caparison that bears a Georgian cross. Singh explains that this elephant was for distinguished visitors, whether Viceroys or governors of the Presidencies. Or you might observe that the howdahs on the elephants are all differently detailed. Again, this is not for aesthetic variety but for historical accuracy: Each howdah was meant for a particular dignitary. Likewise, the different uniforms and turbans that officials are shown wearing indicate their rank. Each doll thus represents historical traditions in the Mysuru of bygone years.
Not all the exhibits are dolls. Perched on a top tier is a large idol of the goddess at the temple in Banashankari, near Badami. She sits atop a lion, wide-eyed, red and fierce. And she too has a story.
This idol is from Koppal’s Kinhal, a village known for traditional wooden toys/crafts. Singh tells me it is made of a light wood called boogi or polki (Givotia rottleriformis), a tree used to demarcate agricultural land. The process of making these idols uses tamarind paste, glue and turmeric to name a few ingredients. It also uses rags – “specifically from old clothes, washed some fifty times!” says Singh, or they will not stick. Rags are also used to add strength to the idol’s joints. And finally, the idols are given a colourful and metallic finish so that they can shimmer and shine in the sun when they are hoisted onto temple chariots to take part in processions.
Unusual materials
Though many of the museum’s dolls are made of wood, according to Dharmendra, clay was the most commonly used material for doll-making. “It is easily available, more pliable and easier to work with than wood,” he says. Many of the finely worked dolls in the museum are made of camel bone, a material that is commonly used for doll-making in Rajasthan and parts of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. One of the most unusual materials is used in an idol that depicts the Atmavilas Ganapati of the Mysuru Palace – it is made with elephant dung. Singh estimates that it is about 150 years old, making it the oldest exhibit in the museum.
A Navaratri display of dolls is like a microcosm of the world. It comprises animals, kings, commoners, saints, deities, and also inanimate objects. Just so, the museum includes many objects such as several small brass and silver vessels. Many of these belonged to R Kaladevi, Singh’s mother and a founding trustee of Ramsons. Kaladevi’s collection included Channapatna dolls, porcelain dolls and others picked up during travels abroad.
The museum is named after her since a core part of the collections belonged to her. Ramsons has added to this core by collecting and commissioning new dolls in various crafts. They have displayed some of these over the years too. With this new museum, the tradition of displaying dolls continues in a larger and more permanent manner.
(The writer is the author of ‘Discovering Bengaluru’ and the Convenor of INTACH Bengaluru Chapter.)
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