Roundabout | Dolls beyond the Barbie world

Well, it may be too late in the day to play with dolls but certainly not too late to write about them. In 1997, she had a song dedicated to her, which was being sung shamelessly: “I’m a Barbie girl, in the Barbie world/ Life in plastic, It’s fantastic/ You can brush my hair, undress me everywhere.” Well, this size-zero bony creature seemed to have erased memories of all dolls, starting from the early civilisations, and that was tough to take. A memory from the changing world of the 90s, which is still alive in the mind of well-known Delhi-based painter Gogi Saroj Paul leaving her painting brush for a while and started making huge and healthy canvas-stuffed dolls or rather sculptures in reaction to the emaciated girl who had become such a craze. The craze continued, but soon one stopped bothering, and in vengeance started giving Russian Nesting Dolls as gifts to little girls, accompanied by a recitation of a more appealing poem of their tribe: “ All you see is outside me: my painted smile, the rosy-posy shell, the fluttery eyes/ A butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth-type me/ But inside there’s another me.” It was this “another me” within this doll named Matryoshka, which encased several smaller dolls in her plump frame, that said it all. Well, it all started with a young and enthusiastic student of a fashion and design technology institute reading out an essay on her vocational choice titled: “Why I am here?” Young Tanya Passan, well that’s her name, held forth in all sincerity: “Ever since I was a child, I had a liking for dolls, but their dresses were so lacking in finesse that I took it as an opportunity to create my own designs!” So, this young woman started making sketches and colouring them.