Will you believe me if I tell you that the Garden city does not stock dolls?
Ok, Dolls of the right kind?
Ok, Ok, Dolls that are miniature and plenty to find elsewhere in the country?
Well, you better believe it.
When Navaratri started, the first thing we kids did (ya, I still think of myself as a kid!! haha! can you believe that?) was build up ideas on construting a park. For those unelightened souls on Tamil culture, we tams keep something called a golu every navaratri- A golu is an exhibition of dolls arranged in steps- and one of most the nicest things that makes golu famous among kids (Apart from sundal- now how do I describe sundal? and dressing up in diff avatars!) is the park thing. As the word suggests, a park is a park...hmm...thats not much help is it?!
Well, we haul in some soil from the garden, put some seeds (and hope they sprout on time before the visitors start coming in), then we arrange some animals and humans all over so that the set up looks like a park! oof! Thats better!
Some people even build zoos and tripati hills and other strange things!!
Coming to the Bangalore city part... We didn't have miniature humans at home to put in the park as this is the first time the household has agreed to allow a park. As you may guess, this wouldn't do at all! A park without miniature humans? Noway! So VJ did what anyone would have done- promised everyone at home, including the adults, that she will be back in one hour with plenty of humans and some nice park things like swings, see-saws and stuff.
Off she went to the nearest fancy store and in a nice attempt at Kanada asked if they had any 'chikade people dolls'? What is the reply? A wierd look and pointing at a girl doll that is 20 times bigger than what she had in mind! Ok, maybe this shop doesn't know about golu and hence doesn't stock dolls. No probs, there are a million other places right? No! Ninth block? - wierd look, a sarcastic comment at her language! Fourth block?- a little more understanding but still a horizontal head nod!
Maybe it will be with some balloonwalas? The dolls are still 10 times bigger! Here and there she went, combing Bangaluru for some miniature plastic park stuff but poor thing, she had only a sore throat and an aching leg left at the end of the day! And the promise of one hour stretched into three before she finally accepted defeat and went back home!
Back home in dear old Chennai, we used to get this for 5o paise and 1 rupee with almost all road side shops littering near the Parthasarathy temple. And the stuff were so so 'park' But now...cha!
No wonder I call Bangalore dumb!!
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