All work, all play

It was the summer of 1992. Suhasini Paul and her five friends in Nagpur spent the hot afternoons playing carrom during their vacation. As the square board permitted only four players at a time, they had to take turns to play. That got Paul thinking about a way to get all of them to play together. A hexagonal board lying unused at home caught her eye. She then turned it into a carrom board by inscribing it with lines and other markings using chalk and colour. The board was balanced on a small stool and a bowl placed under each corner in place of the usual corner-pocket. That year, the Reserve Bank of India came out with a new ₹1 coin that was so smooth it glided easily over surfaces. That became the carrom striker for Paul and her friends, while 25 paise coins served as carrom men. A 50-paise coin painted in pink became the queen, and a carrom game for six players was ready.

The friends played with it for the next three years. Paul then left to study electrical engineering, followed by a post-graduation course at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. When she returned to Nagpur in 2005, hexagonal carrom boards were being sold everywhere. “What I had thought of 15 years ago was something that toymakers had come up with then,” she reminisces.

Today, 35-year-old Paul is among a handful of toy designers in India and has worked with clients ranging from Disney to Italy’s Ferrero (Kinder Joy) and Thailand’s Royalking, besides several companies across the US, UK, China and India.

Paul had her first major break in 2005 when she was selected to do her diploma project with Frank Educational Aids, the then market leader. “I had to design four games that could create environmental awareness among children,” she recalls. She used concepts such as the water cycle and the solar system to create games and even designed puzzles based on the dos and don’ts for keeping the environment green.

The company launched these games at the Hong Kong Toy Fair in January 2006 and they were a huge hit. Soon, Paul began getting offers for design consulting and her studio, Pink Elefant, was born. She sells her toy collections under this brand, even as she designs many others for clients. She has over 100 board games and puzzles to her credit, as also several baby and soft toys.

Living close to Toy City, the planned cluster of toymakers in Greater Noida, allows her to not only design for other manufacturers but also get her own toy brand manufactured at their factories.

“I am the interface between consumers and manufacturers as I understand what each of them wants,” she says.

This also prompted her to come up with a range of interchangeable sports toys for Disney that offer children greater variety. So, for instance, a racket used for lawn tennis can also be used for table tennis simply by changing the handle. An elastic sling attached to the handle further turns it into a slingshot.

Since 2009, Paul has been designing the surprise toys that come with the Kinder Joy confection. These too have modular elements that are complete on their own, but can be assembled together into a newer toy.

Paul prefers to charge a one-time fee for her designs, rather than a royalty. “A one-time design fee lets me focus on design rather than financial aspects,” she says.

And when it comes to design, her focus has been two-fold — to create environmental awareness among children; and to make toys that are not only educational and recreational but also easy to use and carry.

The first led her to Anji, a sprawling bamboo forest in China. “I researched for a month to create a doll’s house,” she says. The result is a doll’s house built entirely without screws and is completely recyclable, which sells under the Eco Joy sub-brand from Ecowayz at ₹4,000.

She sells nearly 90 per cent of her Pink Elefant products online through Flipkart, Fashion and You, 99lables.com and shopo.in. The rest sell at design stores such as Buzzeria in Delhi and Goa’s Tuk Tuk. “I also get orders directly through clients in Malaysia and Singapore,” she says.

From eco-friendly toys, her ideas are evolving in a natural progression. “I now want to design a playground for children. I am looking for opportunities to design good play-spaces with eco-friendly materials,” she says.

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