NOT A CHILD’S PLAY

A few years ago, Anuja, my friend, attended a wedding in her extended family.  The bridegroom’s mother gifted to the bride a pair of dolls decked up in wedding attire instead of the usual dolls bought from the shop.  (As per Tamil Brahmin traditions, the bridegroom’s mother and sisters shower the bride with many gifts like dresses, accessories, cosmetics, jewels etc. on the day of the wedding and since till a few decades ago, child marriages were still prevalent, the gift hamper includes a few dolls and board games.) She was very much attracted to the “couple dolls” and requested me to make a pair for her to be displayed during Navaratri at her home.  I too promised.

When I and my sister were young, we had two dolls at home. We called them Remy and Shamy.  One had blonde hair.  My brother once soaked the blonde one in water, as a result of which, the hair was lost and the doll became bald.  As my sister was very upset, my brother, who too was quite young had stitched hair for the doll with black thread within a few days.  We stitched many clothes for both the dolls with leftover cloths. My mother stitched most of our clothes and our dolls too had frocks and skirts matching with our dresses. We tried making jewels also for them. We often performed wedding for the dolls. 

Coming to the present, ever since I promised to Anuja to gift her the dolls, I started searching for them.  When I was young, every fancy shop in T.Nagar had this kind of dolls.  But unfortunately, I could not find any.  I told my sister, my sister-in-law and all my friends to look for this kind of dolls.  After a long wait, my sister could get me a pair from either Bangalore or Mysore.  But, the quality is horrible.  Honestly, I was not impressed with the dolls.  I was very busy with life and I could not spend time on this work.  I have been seeing similar dolls on “hobby ideas group” on facebook and was getting great ideas for it.  So a week ago, I decided, I will use the same dolls and transform them into a “bride and groom”.

Since Anuja is an Iyengar, I decided, the dolls too would be Iyengars.  I googled to observe their way of dressing.  I saw videos on the net to learn to drape the sari and dhoti in Iyengar style.  My mother still stitches her clothes and so she always has pieces of extra cloth in all colours.  I initially thought, I will borrow some from her.  But suddenly I felt, using sari falls would be a good idea.  So I bought maroon and white colour sari falls.  I used the maroon for stitching the blouse and the sari and the white for the dhoti and the angavastram.  For the golden border in the sari, I used gold colour fabric paint.  Similarly, for the dhoti, I used green on one side and maroon on the other and painted gold over them.  Dhotis with green and maroon on either side are called “Mayilkan veshtis” in Tamil and are used in weddings.  Also, maroon is the most popular colour for “madisar” in weddings.

When I opened the dolls from the sealed transparent cover, I found that their clothes were either stapled or pinned.  Also, one doll’s head was covered with a scarf and the other with a turban.  When I removed the turban, I was shocked.  The doll was bald.  I recollected my brother stitching hair to our doll and thought I could do something similar.  Unfortunately, this doll is too small and also the head was not detachable.  So, I stuck black embroidery thread on the bald head of one of the dolls.  After the job was over, I saw there was gap between the threads and the scalp was very visible.  So I decided that this doll would be the bridegroom and cropped the hair. For the other doll, I first painted the scalp black and then stuck the threads and it looked natural.  I plaited the hair and also using the same thread made a tiny bun and affixed on the right.  It is called Andal Kondai. 

Jewels and accessories and make up: 

For poonal, I used thick white thread.

I made Thali (Mangalasutra) with a golden colour foam pad and thick yellow thread.

Golden beads for a chain and gold colour chamkis strung to gold colour thin metal rods to make a necklace and bangles. 

White chamkis used for making nethi chutti and rakodi made with foam pad, colour stone and chamkis. 

Floral plait made with paper flowers and stuck to a pad which is then tied to the hair.

I used nail polish for nalangu.

I made garlands with paper, but were not very attractive.  So used some shiny craft material (honestly I don’t know the name) and twisted them to look like garlands.

  

I have borrowed most of the craft material from my sister Vijayalakshmi and my nephew Atul. 

This is the most boring blog, I have written till date.  But I enjoyed making the dolls so much, I thought, I should document the process.