{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Incredible India Travel | Social Impact & Culture Tours","title":"Channapatna Toys Tour From Bangalore: The Tiger King's Gift to the World That Michelle Obama Bought and Barack Obama Received","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1344,"description":"In the last decade of the 18th century, the most formidable military adversary the British East India Company ever faced in South India looked at a small town 60 kilometres from his capital and made a decision that would outlast his empire, his wars and his death in battle by over two centuries.Tipu Sultan decided to make Channapatna the toy capital of India.He created an international export market for the wooden lacquerware toys that local craftsmen had been making in this small Karnataka town. He provided land for artisan workshops. He established trade connections with Persian, Egyptian, Chinese and Turkish merchants who visited his capital at Srirangapatna. The toys that left Channapatna on those 18th century trade routes were made from locally-grown ivory wood, coloured with vegetable dyes made from turmeric, spinach and beetroot and finished with lac melted by friction from a spinning lathe in a technique that was already ancient when Tipu Sultan patronised it.In 1904 the Maharaja of Mysore sent a craftsman named Bavas Miyan from Channapatna to Japan to study its advanced lacquerware and toy-making techniques. Bavas Miyan returned and introduced the Japanese-inspired doll form that you now see on every Channapatna toy shelf, the rounded wobbling figure that children of every culture reach for instantly.In 2006 the Indian government gave Channapatna toys a Geographical Indication tag, placing them in the same protected category as Darjeeling tea and Kanchipuram silk.In 2010 Michelle Obama bought Channapatna toys during her visit to India. In 2015 Barack Obama received them as a gift when he visited the country.From Tipu Sultan's 18th century export market to the White House. In two centuries.In this episode we take you on the complete Channapatna toys tour from Bangalore. We tell the full story of how a king's aesthetic passion created a craft tradition that has survived wars, colonial rule, the near-death experience of cheap Chinese plastic toy competition...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/yFoJreTJ7rcK2QU9eeHD-gmvswiTVtd3h606aV2KxiM/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mMzVm/YmQxODhhZDBiZGRm/NDY0Y2RkZTc5Mjli/MDlkNy5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}