By subject, i am sure i have taken you briefly to your childhood days, if you know thamizh and born before 1980's. Before i go further into the soppu saamaan, this word in English would mean wooden kitchen utensil toy in plain butler English translation and I am NOT sure if the below picture could match your imagination or should I say helped in reviving "nastalgic" moments?? :)
The answer to Why the title now is ...
with the fact that my 4 year old daughter, bhavnaa, "earned" her first bigger toy in her recent performance appraisal, i went ahead and bought the kitchen set. After spending 3 hours of assembling the unit, this is how it looked like.
While seeing my daughter's first reaction on this assembled unit was indeed one of the happiest moments, it definitely made me wonder if we are preventing the natural imaginative powers of the modern day kids. If you notice, this technology enhanced kitchen set had cell phone to electric oven to microwave burner to modern day utensils, thanks for the cheap Chinese plastic varieties.
Back then, with the mud/wooden soppu saamaan,it definitely helped me to think what i can do to maximize with each of soppu's and at times, some of the soppu's were made with my own little hands(then!!) to cater to my needs as i had plenty of access to the muddy grounds then. Adding to that, I also wonder if that was the first time, I tried mimicking someone to cater to my imaginative customers of my own imaginative food :)
On a serious note, I definitely see this changed trend impacted the life of those wooden soppu making artisans as it definitely provided livelihood of many such families back then. I am sure they would have quit their professional to get settled as mason or construction workers of any local construction companies by now, thanks to the successful but unfortunate replacement of these wonderfully carved wooden toys or mud pots.
However, as I read recently, with the increasing safety concerns over the high lead contents used on the paints and the plastic toys of these cheap chinese makes, the big giants like Walmart are re-thinking of bring these wooden toys back. Read this article to find more information in this regard: High levels of lead found in kids' products at Walmart, Target | California Watch
I am sure such an awareness would bring back those artisans to their professional in full swing and may be, our 2nd generation may see the history repeated itself and may play with such wooden "soppu samaan".
Or May be it is a wishful thinking??!!
The answer to Why the title now is ...
with the fact that my 4 year old daughter, bhavnaa, "earned" her first bigger toy in her recent performance appraisal, i went ahead and bought the kitchen set. After spending 3 hours of assembling the unit, this is how it looked like.
While seeing my daughter's first reaction on this assembled unit was indeed one of the happiest moments, it definitely made me wonder if we are preventing the natural imaginative powers of the modern day kids. If you notice, this technology enhanced kitchen set had cell phone to electric oven to microwave burner to modern day utensils, thanks for the cheap Chinese plastic varieties.
Back then, with the mud/wooden soppu saamaan,it definitely helped me to think what i can do to maximize with each of soppu's and at times, some of the soppu's were made with my own little hands(then!!) to cater to my needs as i had plenty of access to the muddy grounds then. Adding to that, I also wonder if that was the first time, I tried mimicking someone to cater to my imaginative customers of my own imaginative food :)
On a serious note, I definitely see this changed trend impacted the life of those wooden soppu making artisans as it definitely provided livelihood of many such families back then. I am sure they would have quit their professional to get settled as mason or construction workers of any local construction companies by now, thanks to the successful but unfortunate replacement of these wonderfully carved wooden toys or mud pots.
However, as I read recently, with the increasing safety concerns over the high lead contents used on the paints and the plastic toys of these cheap chinese makes, the big giants like Walmart are re-thinking of bring these wooden toys back. Read this article to find more information in this regard: High levels of lead found in kids' products at Walmart, Target | California Watch
I am sure such an awareness would bring back those artisans to their professional in full swing and may be, our 2nd generation may see the history repeated itself and may play with such wooden "soppu samaan".
Or May be it is a wishful thinking??!!
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