Skip to main content

Featured Post

Temples of Kashi - The Tilbhandeshwar Temple

The city of Kashi is filled with temples, big and small, old and new. There are temples at every corner, and you never know where you will stumble upon a small shrine. There are idols beneath what remains of trees (there are hardly any trees any more within the core area of the city), there are saffron covered forms resembling deities which seem attached to walls, an especially incongruous sight when the idol itself appears to be old, while the wall is evidently new…. And there are surprisingly large temples rising from what appear to be a bunch of houses. The city is sometimes colloquially said to be as old as time, and some of the shrines and temples are said to date back to times unknown, at least the deity itself, if not the structure. Not much remains of the ancient structures anyway. The city has seen more than its fair share of good and bad times. It has seen the heights of grandeur, and the lows brought about by destruction. The city that exists today has grown so haphaza...
Post a Comment

Wooden Toys

I can't go to Nashik without thinking of toys. This was where we bought the first wooden toy for Samhith - a train - and today, we have a huge collection of these wooden toys. mostly vehicles.





I was at Nashik about a month back, and seeing all these toys reminded me of the first time we saw them... a visit we made almost 5 years back..... I had just started my blog then, and didn't even think of taking a photo of the toy shops at Panchavati then. We did buy a number of them, though! This time, on the other hand, I held in my temptation by clicking pics and returning without buying a single one!


The shopkeeper told us that these toys are made in Nasik. He was hesitant to tell us who made them, or where he bought them, probably afraid that we would go directly to the maker.... but these toys are certainly cheaper at Nasik than anywhere else that I have seen them. Samhith was eager to get some more, but space in our house is a major issue. Besides, we use these toys mainly at Navaratri (which starts next week, which is why I remembered these toys now) and this year, we can not celebrate the festival...

You can see some of our other wooden vehicles in my earlier Navaratri posts...

Most of the wooden vehicles you can see there were bought at Nashik!


Labels:
Location: Nashik, Maharashtra, India

Comments

  1. MridulaOctober 12, 2012 at 11:21 AM

    I do exactly the same so many times, I click a picture and don't buy anything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarOctober 13, 2012 at 9:04 PM

      Thats probably the one advantage of being possessed by a camera, Mridula!!

      Delete
  2. AswathiBabuOctober 12, 2012 at 12:56 PM

    Very interesting Anu...

    ReplyDelete
  3. RichaOctober 12, 2012 at 4:35 PM

    These are so nice. I wonder if kids will like the feel of these charming wooden toys as compared to the plastic stuff that dominates the market.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarOctober 13, 2012 at 9:09 PM

      Yes, Richa.. these are much, much nicer than the plastic toys. we have quite a few of them and Samhith loves playing with them. in fact, all the kids who come to see our golu during navaratri want to play with them!

      Delete
  4. chitraOctober 12, 2012 at 10:09 PM

    Nice collection...Navaratri is starting. Will wait for your posts:))

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarOctober 13, 2012 at 9:10 PM

      Thanks chitra.... yes, Navaratri is starting and we are so sad that we cant keep the golu. but hopefully i will have lots of other stuff to share

      Delete
  5. P.N. SubramanianOctober 12, 2012 at 10:50 PM

    Beautiful toys. Though I had been to Nashik, I never had an opportunity of appreciating them in them shops. This year I am in Chennai. In my childhood we had plenty of Marapachis made of Red Sandal Wood (Rakta chandanam).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarOctober 13, 2012 at 9:13 PM

      yes, PNS.. they are lovely... i dont know how you missed them in Nashik.. the shops at Panchavati are filled with them! and even at Tryambak... we have lots of marapachis too... of all shapes and sizes :D my mother and mami have a huge collection now

      Delete
  6. Vishal RathodOctober 13, 2012 at 1:12 PM

    Click Click Click .

    I remember my childhood days when I used to play with wooden toys. Nowadays only plastic ones with battery operated or soft ones are available.

    Thanks Anu jee for posting

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarOctober 13, 2012 at 9:18 PM

      Thanks Vishal! the trend of wooden toys is coming back... they are really much nicer for kids to play with... and we keep looking out for these wherever we go!

      Delete
    2. NishaOctober 14, 2012 at 9:37 PM

      Vishal,
      Wooden toys had their own charm. :)

      Delete
  7. NishaOctober 14, 2012 at 9:23 PM

    I never knew wooden toys are made in Nashik !! For wooden toys, all I knew was about Channapatnam !
    Thanks Anu for sharing this with us, my trip to Nashik will cover this. And that bullock cart is fascinating. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. kanakOctober 15, 2012 at 3:04 PM

    Such beautiful toys! ou brought back my childhood memories. trip to Himachal

    ReplyDelete
  9. Play angry BirdsJanuary 2, 2013 at 5:58 PM

    Beautiful toys ..really this refresh my childhood memory.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave a comment for me so that I will know you have been here....

Popular posts from this blog

Gokarna Part II – The Five Lingams

We continued our Gokarna trip by visiting four other Shiva temples in the vicinity, all connected to the same story of Gokarna. The story of Gokarna mentions the Mahabaleshwara Lingam as the one brought from Kailas by Ravana, and kept at this place on the ground by Ganesha. (See my earlier post- Gokarna – Pilgrimage and Pleasure). However, the story does not end here. It is believed that, in his anger, Ravana flung aside the materials which covered the lingam- the casket, its lid, the string around the lingam, and the cloth covering it. All these items became lingams as soon as they touched the ground. These four lingams, along with the main Mahabaleshwara lingam are collectively called the ‘ Panchalingams’ . These are: Mahabaleshwara – the main lingam Sajjeshwar – the casket carrying the lingam. This temple is about 35 Kms from Karwar, and is a 2 hour drive from Gokarna. Dhareshwar – the string covering the lingam. This temple is on NH17, about 45 Kms south of Gokarna. Gunavanteshw...
10 comments
Read more

Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
2 comments
Read more

Review of Executive Lounges at New Delhi Railway Station (NDLS)

During my recent trip to Uttarakhand , I was faced with a problem I had never encountered before. We were passing through Delhi, but we had hardly any time in the city. On earlier visits when I have had to change trains/flights at Delhi, I have always arrived in the morning and left again at night, visiting relatives in between. This time, I was arriving in the city at night, and leaving again early in the morning. There was hardly any time to visit people. I would only have a couple of hours with them before I’d have to leave again. For the first time, we considered booking a hotel, but there again, we were hesitant about the actual hotels, the costs involved, and the logistics of getting from the airport to the railway station and then back again from the station to the airport.  That’s when we remembered reading something about a corporate-managed lounge at Delhi station. We soon figured out that we could book online and pay by the hour. Besides, we also learnt that there wasn’...
2 comments
Read more