Kalpana Chawla, Savitribai Phule, Maya Angelou, Frida Kahlo, Sarla Thakral, Phoolan Devi and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Move over Barbie, hello Bommai (traditional Tamilian doll). Really, why bother with a plastic moulded Barbie when your kids can have a famous personality to play with? Check out the offerings of The Smritisonian from Kodaikanal—rag dolls that not just honour the afore-mentioned feminist icons, but help our children learn about these legends. Which is why each comes with a set of accessories and a note telling you about your leading lady. So, there’s a book and pencil or a palette, or a sleeping bag and, in Kalpana’s case, a rocket!
Lamech, a journalist and a writer with over two decades of experience across broadcast and print, and her husband, a finance professional, moved from Gurgaon to Kodaikanal some two years ago where they had put their kids in boarding school. They rented a cottage nearby, intending to spend more time in the hills than in the city. There, she came across a self-help group, Prowess, and its team of skilled seamstresses from whom she would get clothing and cushion covers stitched in pre-pandemic days. But soon, the lockdown happened and business at Prowess took a huge hit, as did the livelihoods of everyone involved.
In this bleak scenario, Lamech took it upon herself to create business for her new friends. And also use the opportunity to fulfill a long-held dream—feminism taught young. So, combining her passion for fabrics, fashion and feminism, she decided to design these Bommais that introduce the concept to kids from a young age, and equally importantly, generate an income for the seamstresses. All by sticking to an ideology of zero wastage, not using plastic and sourcing local materials.
Thus was born The Smritsonian, and the dolls designed by Lamech were given shape and form by these ladies and sold via Instagram. Indeed, a wonderfully unique concept of dolls of famous women, stitched by women, sold by a woman, telling you stories of perseverance, strength, imagination and inclusion. In fact, so inclusive that there’s even a doll with a prosthetic limb.
“The ladies knew how to make simple stuffed Bommais and given that they were going through an economic crisis, I didn’t have the time to teach them anything radically different. I knew I had to build on the existing knowledge and guide them towards more complex shapes, finer detailing and a focus on quality. Thereafter, the onus was on me to create the narrative. Craft dolls that resembled famous personalities, even while ensuring that the features were simple enough to fit the Waldorf pedagogy—too many features take away from that line of thought, and it also ensures that the dolls are minimal enough to appeal to adults and become collectibles of sorts,” she explains.
Although The Smritsonian sells a variety of other products as well, it is these Bommais that have truly gone viral and become hugely popular. “The response has been what I’d hoped, and yet far greater. The brand has grown organically and from a teaching aid in schools, to a 50-year-old’s return gifts, they’ve travelled to places I didn’t think they could, in ways I didn’t imagine. They’ve made people think and engage with these historical figures, read up on them, and truly understand what they stand for,” says Lamech. Indeed, as much as playthings for kids, they’ve also become big collectibles for adults.
“I had my own rag dolls when I was growing up and always felt that my daughter’s generation did not have access to them because of the Barbie doll culture, and for me this was an opportunity to change that,” Lamech says. Going by the rate they’re flying off the shelves, she certainly has.