Billing for your toy shop in Manipur
A child's coin at Yaoshang, a doll that is the only one of its kind: each is a bill on your phone.
From the Yaoshang handful of coins to the doll that sells once
The colour powder and the pichkari sold together as one set
In Yaoshang week a child asks for a packet of colour and a pichkari together. Make the set its own item with its own rate, and the bill shows it as one line, and the count of the set falls by one.
Each doll its own item, gone from the stock when it sells
Make an item for each handmade doll with its own name and rate, and a stock of one. When it sells, it leaves the stock, so the next time a customer asks for the one with the green wrap, you can see at once whether it is there. A doll that sold last month leaves a line on its bill, with the day, so you can tell a customer who asks that it went to a family and is not coming back.
The doll and its spare costume as two items
A family buys a Laiphadibi doll and then, a month later, a second costume for it. Make the costume its own item beside the doll. The two sell and count apart, and the family's page shows both.
Kouna mats in Thoubal and pottery in Imphal East: the crafts around a Manipur toy shop
Toys are made by hand in some of these districts and sold in all of them.
- Khangabok in Thoubal is famed for kouna (tule) handicrafts such as mats, stools, chairs and hand bags.
- Imphal East has 45,346 business establishments, of which 14,061 do handicrafts or handloom work (Economic Census 2013); wool-knitting, cane, bamboo and pottery are also common.
- In Ukhrul, household-industry workers are 2.5% of main workers (2011 Census).
- Bishnupur is known for stoneware, and its district headquarters is popular for hill-grown oranges, yongchak (tree-bean) and vegetables.
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Why a Manipur toy counter is busiest on the days children have coins
Yaoshang brings children with coins and a queue behind them
In Yaoshang week children go from house to house and come away with small coins, and they spend them at your counter on balloons, small toys and colours. Each sale is little, but they come one after another, and you serve a boy while three more shout. At night the cash box has more small coins than you can count against what you remember selling. A boy with coins in his fist has no patience for a sum done aloud.
A doll with a face of its own is not a line on a list
A handmade doll in a costume and ornaments is not the same as the one beside it, even if both came from the same maker. Each has its own price, and when one sells you cannot be sure which one it was. A week later a customer asks for the one with the green wrap, and you are not sure it is still there.
The family that comes before every feast and asks for a little off
Some families come before every Ningol Chakouba and every Yaoshang, buying for the same cousins every time. You know them, and they know you know. They ask for something off. You give it in your head, and you do not remember it the next time, so the discount depends on the day. A toy shop gets the same families four times a year, and a shop that treats them like strangers soon loses them to the shop next door.
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Tools for a toy shelf of Laiphadibi dolls and factory toys side by side
Offers for regular customers
A coupon, handed over once, for the family that comes before every feast, so the little off it asks for is in writing and not argued at the counter.
Low stock warnings
Balloons and colour packets, the first to run out in Yaoshang week, listed before the last packet goes.
Orders to suppliers
A page for each doll maker, with the dolls he brought, each noted with its own price and its own face, kept apart from the factory toys bought from outside the state.
Questions Manipur toy shops ask
A family asks for the same doll as last year. Can I look up last year's sale?
Yes. Open the day of last year's feast and read the bills. The doll's name is on the bill that carried it, and you can see what it sold for.
Pichkaris are still on the shelf but the powder is out. Can I still sell the sets?
A set is two lines on one bill, the pichkari and the packet of powder, each with its own count. When the powder is out its line shows zero, so you see it before the child is at the counter, and you can sell the pichkari alone.
A family comes a month later for a new costume for the doll it bought. Is the costume taken from the doll's count?
No. The costume is its own item with its own rate and count, so selling it does not take a doll off the shelf. The family's page shows the doll and the costume side by side.
Laiphadibi, the Manipuri doll
Doll playing is an old tradition in Manipur; dolls are called Laiphadibi in Manipuri and were once made at home by children and their elders. A toy shop here stocks something that was once made in the house.
As home-making declined, professional doll makers began giving Manipuri dolls proper facial features, costume and ornaments. Each such doll is a small piece of work, with its own price on the shelf.