Indian Dolls & Toys (Revisiting Marg‪)‬

A nation without toys is doomed to ruin," runs a proverb. Although the lack of toys cannot conceivably be a sufficient excuse by itself for any nation's decline and fall, yet there would seem to be much truth in this saying. The fact that a nation has possessed through her history a rich variety of dolls and toys indicates that the people of that nation possess a strong racial consciousness. For historically, dolls and toys are almost always folk-products. Each locality has its peculiar ways of life, its own tradition, modes and manners, customs and beliefs. Whatever is made of this sort of material must contain a wealth of local colour. In the second place, a people with a wide variety of historical dolls and toys may be regarded as having fairly abundant economic resources. For, after all, toys are not necessaries of life. Only in conditions with a wide economic margin is it possible for toys to be demanded and produced. In the next place, the same fact proves that a people as a race are snowing no signs of deterioration but are in possession of youthfulness and vigour. For toys, in the last analysis, are the objects of childish fancy. A race grown old has lost its childmind and is not satisfied with the simple stimulus of folk-dolls and toys, seeking a more complex type of excitement. Lastly, the likelihood of a people's further progress may be surmised, because they are evidently concerned with the healthy growth of those who come after them. Their strong racial consciousness, their inherent beliefs--these are handed on to the next generation in the form of folk-toys.