Last week I read in the newspaper that a certain western celebrity had purchased a Dolls' House for her daughter which cost 35,000 British Pounds or 54,000 American Dollars. This works out to around 34,00,000 Indian rupees. Now that kind of money would buy a one bedroom hall kitchen bathroom apartment in the mini metro that I come from in India. It would even buy a small bungalow in a tier three small town in India. The aforementioned Dolls' House comes complete with a marble bathroom with a bathtub that has its little owner's initials encrusted in gold!
While the kids began discussing what this dream house must be like and should parents spend that kind of money (no matter how much they may have!), I was taken back in time to the Dolls' House that my mother had specially got made for my sister and me exactly thirty one years ago. She had showed the design that she had found in an old American magazine to my Dad's friend who ran his own wood working business. He was confident his carpenters could replicate the house to a T and so she ordered it. Today, any toy shop in any city in India would sell you a Dolls' House and you could even choose from many types but in the India of yore it was an almost unheard of concept. Our Dolls' House cost all of 300 rupees (for both material and labour) which would be less than 5 American Dollars at today's conversion rate! But Rs.300 was a princely sum in India then. Our monthly grocery bill used to be just half that amount. But my mother was determined that we have one at any cost and soon it was time to pick up our gift from the workshop!
That day is as clearly etched in my mind as if it was yesterday. The house was sitting on a table in my Dad's friend's living room and my mother made me go up to it and open it.The whole of the front door opened on tiny hinges giving access to the three rooms on the ground floor. Then the entire roof opened up showing two bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor and the huge attic on the top most floor. The sloping roof even had an exquisitely made dormer window! The garage had its own entrance and there was a balcony on the first floor. They told me to check if the height was enough to accommodate our tiny dolls. I remembering doing that too and pronouncing it just perfect...
And so we brought 'our' house home. Then came the fun part of furnishing it. Since we were in our home town then, the place to go to was 'Tulsi Baag' in the heart of the city which sold all kinds of things for the most reasonable prices. We bought a sofa set for the living room, a red velvet covered dining table and matching chairs, cunning little easy chairs for the balcony, a cupboard with tiny hangers and even tinier buckets and mugs for the dolls to have a bath with! My mother commissioned yet another carpenter to make two tiny wooden beds and then she hand stitched mattresses, sheets, made pillows and pillow covers. She bought nursery print flannel and made blankets. It was only later that my Dad gifted her a sewing machine but I think that she enjoyed making all the bed linen by hand as much as we enjoyed making those little beds! We had more than enough tiny kitchen utensils to outfit our kitchen, fridge, gas stove and plastic fruits included! Then our dolls moved in and the fun began!
That Dolls' House became the focal point of play when we had friends over. It was such a unique piece that no one ever got tired of playing with it. At a later stage I even cut out curtains and stuck them onto the windows! When my Dad got his marching orders from the Army Headquarters and we moved to a new city, our house moved with us and a whole new set of friends got to play with it!
When I was a child, my mother was careful not to create gender stereotypes, long before most women of her age had even heard of the term. So if she ordered the Dolls' House for us, we also had a tools set, dumper trucks, excavators, cars and a jeep which I promptly parked in the garage of the Dolls' House.
Almost two decades later my daughter inherited that house which now had antique value! My sister sent her brand new furnishings from Singapore and then we had fun doing up the house all over again. We even painted it with some left over paint that we had! I never had to spend a rupee on a Dolls' House at all and I knew exactly how to play with it and share it with my daughter, all because my mother had invested so wisely in one all those years ago...
My parents may not have had 54,000 USD to buy a Dolls' House with. But they made the most of what they did have and what they could afford, to the best of their ability. Today I feel it was not the Rs.300 that was spent that holds the most value for me. Rather it is the time and energy that they both put in, right from my Dad driving us a long distance to order the house after a day spent earning a living, to my mother spending hours putting tiny stitches in those little bed sheets of long ago, even as she taught at the local orphanage.
May the little girl who received the expensive Dolls' House from her parents enjoy it as much as I did ours and may her dolls have fun splashing around in that marble bathroom!
The furnishings aren't the original ones but the house is!
Look at that dormer window!
In all its ancient glory!
While the kids began discussing what this dream house must be like and should parents spend that kind of money (no matter how much they may have!), I was taken back in time to the Dolls' House that my mother had specially got made for my sister and me exactly thirty one years ago. She had showed the design that she had found in an old American magazine to my Dad's friend who ran his own wood working business. He was confident his carpenters could replicate the house to a T and so she ordered it. Today, any toy shop in any city in India would sell you a Dolls' House and you could even choose from many types but in the India of yore it was an almost unheard of concept. Our Dolls' House cost all of 300 rupees (for both material and labour) which would be less than 5 American Dollars at today's conversion rate! But Rs.300 was a princely sum in India then. Our monthly grocery bill used to be just half that amount. But my mother was determined that we have one at any cost and soon it was time to pick up our gift from the workshop!
That day is as clearly etched in my mind as if it was yesterday. The house was sitting on a table in my Dad's friend's living room and my mother made me go up to it and open it.The whole of the front door opened on tiny hinges giving access to the three rooms on the ground floor. Then the entire roof opened up showing two bedrooms and a bathroom on the first floor and the huge attic on the top most floor. The sloping roof even had an exquisitely made dormer window! The garage had its own entrance and there was a balcony on the first floor. They told me to check if the height was enough to accommodate our tiny dolls. I remembering doing that too and pronouncing it just perfect...
And so we brought 'our' house home. Then came the fun part of furnishing it. Since we were in our home town then, the place to go to was 'Tulsi Baag' in the heart of the city which sold all kinds of things for the most reasonable prices. We bought a sofa set for the living room, a red velvet covered dining table and matching chairs, cunning little easy chairs for the balcony, a cupboard with tiny hangers and even tinier buckets and mugs for the dolls to have a bath with! My mother commissioned yet another carpenter to make two tiny wooden beds and then she hand stitched mattresses, sheets, made pillows and pillow covers. She bought nursery print flannel and made blankets. It was only later that my Dad gifted her a sewing machine but I think that she enjoyed making all the bed linen by hand as much as we enjoyed making those little beds! We had more than enough tiny kitchen utensils to outfit our kitchen, fridge, gas stove and plastic fruits included! Then our dolls moved in and the fun began!
That Dolls' House became the focal point of play when we had friends over. It was such a unique piece that no one ever got tired of playing with it. At a later stage I even cut out curtains and stuck them onto the windows! When my Dad got his marching orders from the Army Headquarters and we moved to a new city, our house moved with us and a whole new set of friends got to play with it!
When I was a child, my mother was careful not to create gender stereotypes, long before most women of her age had even heard of the term. So if she ordered the Dolls' House for us, we also had a tools set, dumper trucks, excavators, cars and a jeep which I promptly parked in the garage of the Dolls' House.
Almost two decades later my daughter inherited that house which now had antique value! My sister sent her brand new furnishings from Singapore and then we had fun doing up the house all over again. We even painted it with some left over paint that we had! I never had to spend a rupee on a Dolls' House at all and I knew exactly how to play with it and share it with my daughter, all because my mother had invested so wisely in one all those years ago...
My parents may not have had 54,000 USD to buy a Dolls' House with. But they made the most of what they did have and what they could afford, to the best of their ability. Today I feel it was not the Rs.300 that was spent that holds the most value for me. Rather it is the time and energy that they both put in, right from my Dad driving us a long distance to order the house after a day spent earning a living, to my mother spending hours putting tiny stitches in those little bed sheets of long ago, even as she taught at the local orphanage.
May the little girl who received the expensive Dolls' House from her parents enjoy it as much as I did ours and may her dolls have fun splashing around in that marble bathroom!
Superb Anupama ! Bhatukali is such a nostalgic !
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Aarti!So true...
DeleteLovely!! Your memories of something as sweet as a dolls'house jogged mine about how my mami had made one for her granddaughter. Where is yours now ? Would love to see it.
ReplyDeleteSanjana sent it back downstairs after she outgrew it.So it is in Mom's house! What was the one your Mami got made like? Would love to see a pic of it! You can see ours in June.
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