: 78-YO Woman’s Handmade Ethnic Dolls Compete With Mass-Produced Barbies #IndiaNEWS #Entrepreneurs The first thing that comes to peoples minds when they hear the word ‘doll’, is the Barbie doll.

78-YO Woman’s Handmade Ethnic Dolls Compete With Mass-Produced Barbies #IndiaNEWS #Entrepreneurs
The first thing that comes to peoples minds when they hear the word ‘doll’, is the Barbie doll. But it’s common knowledge that Barbies are a machine-made product. They are the representation of a foreign culture,??? Harin Bhatt said to The Better India in an earlier interview.
In contrast to the mass production culture of such dolls, his Kalashree Foundation is circulating unique, handcrafted dolls that speak of India’s ethnicity and diversity.
This is an organisation that was started by Harin with his mother Ranjanben Bhatt back in 1995. Today, they make up to 500 dolls a month with a team of 20 skilled women working under them.
But 78-year-old Ranjanben had taken up the craft as a hobby, long before it turned into a business.
The Birth of Indian Dolls
This Gujarati artist discovered the vibrant art of doll-making in 1960. Her son Harin shared, “Back then, Arunaben Desai was expanding her organisation called Vikas Vidyalaya to make women of the community self-reliant through education and skill. At her academy my mother learnt tailoring, doll-making and hand embroidery and began making figures. ???
His father’s occupation caused the family to move across various cities like Dhoraji, Rajkot and Upleta for the next 35 years. Everywhere they went, his mother would disperse the skills she had learnt among other eager women.
“In 1979, we were stationed in Gandhinagar. Here she started her own sewing classes, and ended up training close to 8,000 women all alone. This has been her biggest achievement as an individual,??? he said.
But it wasn’t until 1990 that Ranjanben’s dolls found a market.
His younger brother Yogesh, a playwright by profession, was to fly to America at the time. For a play, he required puppets and asked his mother to help with the requirement.
“So she made 15 to 20 dolls in four to five months. They ended up on display outside a town hall in New Jersey. As it turned out, the Gujarati community over there loved the work. ??? They had already found a market abroad, and Harin added, “That’s when I decided to expand my mother’s hobby into a full-fledged business. ???
Harin is a graduate in Science, but said that at the time he wished to pursue something different.
He began extensive research on the industry. He studied the art of doll-making, learnt its practice from his mother, and understood the nuances of making it into a profitable business.
Harin Bhatt and the dolls of Kalashree Foundation
Finally, Kalashree Foundation was established in 1995.
The Ethnic Dolls
The aim was to take the art of doll-making as practiced in India to a global level.