The allure of dolls’ houses

A recent article on these pages highlighted the world’s most valuable doll’s house. On display in New York, this three-metre high Astolat Castle comes complete with every minute detail in its interiors: From miniature books down to a miniature chess set arranged for a game, a miniature water cooler, even a miniature toilet roll ready for use. There is nothing left out — and I am sure that thousands of fascinated children peered into the house and imagined what they would and could do if they had something like that in their playrooms. I am sure, too, that there must have been many adults as captivated as the youngsters by the artistry and sheer wonder of this mini-marvel.

What is it about a doll’s house that makes the imagination run wild — even when we are supposedly grown up and past ‘all that’? Are we fascinated because we can rearrange the tiny pieces of furniture without effort and without someone looking over our shoulder critically? Do we enjoy it because we can gaze into a wonderland and imagine all the possibilities that lie ahead? Or is it just that we see our lives as we live them today in a microcosm?

Whatever it is, I find it difficult to look at a doll’s house and not lose myself completely. Maybe this captivation goes back to childhood when my sister and I had a doll’s house apiece: One house was blue, the other pink and naturally, both of us demanded the pink one. We spent a considerable amount of time bickering over who should get which house, until it was all settled with a drawing of lots.

That should have been accepted as fair enough, but once the colour dispute was over, we had to find something else to disagree about.

Thus, the neatness of one doll’s house, with dolls arranged artistically here and there to look like they were lounging around was upsetting for the other, who, it seemed, could never get done with her ‘housework’ and always had the dolls and the doll’s house in disarray.

So, as soon as the coast was clear, a rubber ball would ‘accidentally’ bounce or a heavy cushion would ‘lose its way’ and overturn the house and scatter dolls and furniture here and there — and the wielder of these mysterious flying objects would make herself scarce. When the damage was discovered, the injured party would launch herself at the offender, until finally, both houses, both sets of dolls and both sisters would look worn-out, ragged, and in need of repair.

Perhaps the strife and discord that was generated over our doll’s houses was the reason why our parents decided to give them away when we left town. We had not outgrown them (who does?), but they thought it was time we paid more attention to the Shakespearean plays we were studying and our algebra equations and geometry theorems — and less to those ‘playthings’.

Also, wisely, our parents left the houses with two different families to make sure that the conflict they had seen in our home would not recur elsewhere and they didn’t put other adults through the strain of settling daily spats between siblings.

So, off they went, despite our pleas and protests and promises of better behaviour.

We were probably meant to move on gracefully from that phase of doll’s houses to eventually settling for our own life-size houses. And we did.

But apparently that early ‘loss’ was never forgotten because every glimpse of a doll’s house awakens the child in us and we wonder again about those pink and blue wooden structures we left behind.

Could we now enjoy them without disagreement — with children/grandchildren beside us to monitor us and keep us in line?

Cheryl Rao is a freelance journalist based in India.