It was a place where the city children’s dreams got wings long before the advent of amusement parks.
The decades-old Dolls Museum here, though may have lost its old sheen now with competition from mobile games and TV cartoons, still offers a space for children, especially the underprivileged, to entertain themselves at an affordable rate.
Named after the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the museum, set up in 1980s, has more than 3,000 dolls, made of China clay, papier mache, cloth, coir, wood, rubber, ceramics, mud and plastic. The dolls, displayed in six rooms of the museum, not only kindle dreams in the minds of children but also teach them the first lessons about India’s culture and heritage.
Set up on the lines of Shankar’s International Dolls Museum in New Delhi, the State-run Chacha Nehru Children’s Museum at Thycaud in the city is one of the two such facilities in the country recognised by the Museums Association of India, official sources say.
Array of dolls
Government schools in the city and outskirts, which cannot afford tours to expensive amusement parks, bring their students to this low-key museum which take them down a wonderland of dolls, ranging from ordinary festival puppets to rare ethnic figurines, in different sizes, shapes, costumes and expressions.
One inch to six-foot-tall dolls, decked up in traditional attires of various Indian States, give the children a glimpse of the country’s rare cultural diversity. Besides dolls, the museum houses an impressive collection of stamps and ethnic masks also.
Science museum
A science museum, set up in a separate room with various theory-based exhibits, is also an attraction.
Besides, government schools, some private kindergarten schools also bring children to the museum as part of their annual tours.
Tucked away in the first floor of the headquarters of Kerala State Council for Child Welfare (KSCCW) at Thycaud, the museum had been a hotspot of city children once when amusement parks and TV cartoons were just a hearsay.
The museum is also a solace for the underprivileged inmates of KSCCW.
“Even children from remote village schools come in large numbers here as part of their annual tour. There were days we had welcomed up to 300 children at one go,” Anju, a KSCCW staff, told PTI. ₹5 is charged from each child as entrance fee. But, it may be reduced further on occasions based on the request of school authorities, she said.
Museum curator Sumod CR said it had been designed in a way to provide entertainment as well as impart knowledge and information to children.
“We have a total of 3,200 dolls at our museum. Ours is not at all a profit motive institution. Many people express doubt that whether today’s children are interested to visit a dolls museum at a time when variety of entertainment are on offer at their finger tip,” he told PTI.
“But, there are a large number of underprivileged children also in our society. And our humble museum is still a hope for them,” he said.
The museum has got a new look after the recent renovation undertaken as part of the silver jubilee celebrations of KSCCW.