Billing for your toy shop in Jharkhand
The wooden toy from the hills, the clay elephant and the plastic car, each with its own count.
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A cracked elephant seen in the count, small coins added up and last year's festival read back
The elephants that broke are counted, and the next lot is ordered with them in mind
The same few elephants crack between the potter's cart and your shelf, year after year. Take each cracked piece off the count with its date, and one festival's breakage can be read beside the next. You see how many pieces to ask the potter for above the number you expect to sell, and no customer is promised an elephant that the shelf does not hold.
The coin box and the closing total agree, though tops, whistles and one big gift came in
By evening many tops and whistles have gone to children at two coins each, and one father has taken the large clay elephant as a gift. At closing the report lists the tops, the whistles and the elephant as separate items. You read how much the small sales made and how much the single gift added, and the coin box agrees with the total.
Last year's festival days are the order for this year
Open the days of last year's festival week and read how many clay figures of each kind went. The next order to the potter is written from that, not from the hope that this year will be a big one.
Ranchi's hills, a steel town and a capital: where Jharkhand's toys are made and sold
Toys are made in one part of Jharkhand and sold in many others, and the shopkeeper hears the story of each from the person who brings them. A toy that was made near Ranchi may be sold in a steel town, and the other way round.
- Ranchi, the state capital, is an important centre of trade and commerce in Jharkhand; nearby forests supply furniture, match box and paper industries.
- In Jamshedpur most people work in industrial units: Tata companies, iron and steel, automobile and cement.
- Hazaribagh village trade runs on forest produce: mahua flowers, lac, kendu leaves, leaf plates (dona-pattal) and bamboo baskets, mostly through vyaparis and village sahukars.
A palm-leaf toy beside a plastic car, a clay elephant that sells once a year and a child with two coins
A palm-leaf toy and a plastic car share a shelf, but not a way of buying
A factory toy comes in a carton with a fixed price. A handmade toy comes from a maker in a small lot, tied in a cloth, and no two lots cost the same. On the shelf they sit side by side, and the shopkeeper has to remember which is which.
The potter's lot comes early or late, and the shelf is wrong either way
The Kumhar's clay elephants reach you when the kiln has finished, not when the festival asks for them. Some years the potter's lot is early and the shelf is full too soon. Some years it is late and the first customers of the season leave empty-handed. What is left in the back room after the festival is not counted again until next year.
A child with two coins and a father with a gift
Toy sales come in two sizes. The child's coins buy a top or a whistle, a dozen times in an afternoon, and the father's note buys a larger toy once. Both are served at the same counter by the same person, and the small sales are the ones that go unwritten. By evening the box of coins is heavy and the notebook is light.
What the phone keeps beside the shelf of wooden and clay toys
Low stock warnings
A warning for each kind that runs low, the clay elephant, the painted top or the palm-leaf toy, so the potter or the hill maker is asked for the right kind.
Godown stock
The back room where the festival clay figures wait, counted apart from the shelf in front, so a full store room does not hide a bare shelf.
Your own online shop
A page with this season's clay figures and wooden toys and their rates, ready to share on WhatsApp with the family that cannot come to the fair.
Questions Jharkhand toy sellers ask about makers, fairs and one-off pieces
After the festival my hand count of the shelf does not match the phone. What do I do?
Count each kind, then set the number beside the phone's count. Where they differ, change the count by hand with the day.
The potter wants his money for the whole lot, but the elephants sell one at a time. How do I know how much of the lot is still with me?
Note the lot against the potter's page when it comes in. Each elephant sold takes one off the count, so what is left of the lot is the count that stands, and you tell the potter a number he can believe.
The potter's new lot costs more. Do the elephants already on my shelf change rate?
Only if you change it. Change the rate on the elephant's item and every new bill carries it, while a bill already made keeps its old rate.
Toys from the hills round Ranchi and the potters' elephants
The hilly areas around Ranchi and Toupadana make handcrafted toys from wood, palm leaves and jute, painted in bright colours, with themes from stories and festivals. A shop that stocks them is buying from makers close to home, in lots that come when the makers have finished. Toys of this kind are light, and a maker can carry a lot to the shop in a cloth bundle.
Jharkhand's Kumhar potters make clay toys and images linked to seasonal festivals and religious ceremonies; clay elephants are among the best known. These are made for the season and bought in it, so the shop's count of them in the weeks around a festival matters more than in the rest of the year. A shop that sells them for the festival and for nothing else has the same question every year: how many, and which size.