Channapatna - The land of toys!
Channapatna is a town in Ramnagara District of Karnataka. It's around 13KM from Ramnagara and around 60KM from Bengaluru. It's located on the Bangalore-Mysore highway. Channapatna is popular for its Wooden toys. Because of its popularity, Channapatna is known as Gombegala Ooru of Karnataka. These colourful wooden toys are very smooth and glossy finished. The colours used for toy making is natural and the toys are not sharp edged. Vegetable dyes are used for colours. Hence ensuring that it's kids friendly!
The wood used for toy making is called Aale mara (Wrightia tinctoria) in Kannada - ivory-wood. As it's soft and can be turned to different shapes easily when compared to other wood.
Tippu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore (Present Karnataka) was a great admirer of wooden toys. He invited artisans from Persia to train the local artisans in making wooden toys. That's how wooden toy making came to India!
There're a lot of stores in Channapatna which sells Channapatna toys. These toys are cheap in Channapatna town and very costly outside Channapatna.
Adding details of the stores from where we purchased:
1. SriVidhya Toys and Gift Center
#1245, Matada street, Fort, Channapatna Ph: 9844068468/7996331629
2. Sri Manjunatha Toys Factory
No.1234/2, Kote, Mata Street, Channapatna, Ramanagara
If you're planning to buy any Channapatna toys, please don't buy it from highway shops. As the toys in the highway shops are overpriced.
Also, the store owners are ready for a decent discounts, please avoid bargaining. The store owners are very friendly and ready to show as many toys as we want.
Never miss this place if you're in Ramanagara :)
#channapatna_toys #the_land_of_toys
5 янв 2020
