Playing with tops
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Recently a colleague bought a top, which had a elegant swivel mechanism and was made of wood and coloured with lacquer. It was aesthetically crafted to look like a dancer. I was playing around with the 50mm f/1.8 lens and decided to take some photos. It was a indigenous toy made in Channapatna. Searching I found that this craft was almost extinct and was protected by a geographic indicator. More on this in a detailed post by deepsan.
I had visited a similar factory in Thane near Mumbai as a child where tribals made warli paintings and lacquerware toys (though in a style different from channapatna). It is alive and well but as it is inevitable, the younger generation is not very keen on learning it and the art is slowly dying. One of the bad effects of globalisation is homogenization of communities.