Rag Dolls Museum

The Rag Dolls Museum is an integral part of the Rock Garden, one of the signature landmarks of Chandigarh.  The museum was inaugurated on the second death anniversary of its legendary creator Sh. Nek Chand on June 12, 2017.  Late Sh. Nek Chand, then employed in the Engineering Department of Chandigarh Capital Project, collected stones of various shapes and sizes which bore a resemblance to some natural figures like birds, animals, people and sometimes even decorative abstract forms. He gradually gathered a large body of materials including stones, urban industrial wastes, etc., and started compiling and composing art pieces with them. Dr M. S. Randhawa, the then chief commissioner of Chandigarh,  was impressed with this unusual composition of rocks, stones, and scraps and ordered its preservation. The rock garden thus came into existence in 1976.

Rag Dolls Museum was created during the third phase of construction inside Rock Garden. Village scenes like chaupal, huts, trees, swings, etc., were created to provide the backdrop to around 200 dolls. These dolls made from cloth scraps collected by late Sh. Nek Chand from tailors' shops from across the city during the 1970s. Installation of unique mud huts with ornamental decorations, artificial trees with spreading branches provide the necessary ethnic context to the dolls. Women are depicted spinning the charkha, cooking, enjoying conversations with each other and celebrating festivals and weddings, dressed in colourful clothes and their day to day jewellery. Similarly, men are clad in dhoti, kurtas, and pagris, and are shown smoking hukkas, discussing village affairs in the chaupal, meditating under the trees and dancing in wedding processions.  

It is said that these sceneries were created to sensitise the new urban generation about the villages and the lifestyles and other concerns of the rural people, so that they can learn to appreciate their legacy. The underlined utility of such projects is not merely entertainment or sensitisation but an inspiration for contributing to the health of the environment by reusing and recycling old and discarded materials.