This week a few of us paid a visit to Channapatna. It is a town located in the Bangalore Rural district of Karnataka. It didn't look like fun at the start as we had huge survey sheets that where needed to collect facts on the ground. These included questions regarding conditions of the families, whether they had members working in panchayat, how much land they hold, how many farm animals they own, their educational qualifications and their wages.
In Channapatna most of these questions turned out to be irrelvent as Channapatna and the surrounding villages did not practice large scale farming.
In Channapatna most of these questions turned out to be irrelvent as Channapatna and the surrounding villages did not practice large scale farming.
The Toy Industry:
After arriving in Channapatna, thanks to Sudipto we landed into Mr Srinivas' house, the owner of Kushal Toys. He told us quite a lot about Channapatna. More than 80% of the town is involved in the toy making industry. The toys are made of halle wood, a kind of ivory wood. The speciality of this is the tree grows very quickly after cutting it for wood. They are coloured using coloured lacquer sticks & polished with leaves of the Thale palm. The colour given to the lacquer may be a vegetable based dye or a chemical dye.
How the business works:
- Local Turning or Manual Lathe: doesn't require much finish and mechanisation. Can be seen in the bead making village of Neelasandra.
- Fine Turning or Machine Lathe: for export quality products. It is a difficult task which requires a very smooth finish and no black patches on the wood. Requires the use of machines. eg. napkin rings made in Kalanagar
- Cutting: making parts that don't require turning. eg. parts for toy horses.
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