Rag Dolls Museum

Established in 2017, the Rag Doll Museum in Chandigarh is a very important element of the famous Rock Garden and an interesting place to visit. Created by Sh. Nek Chand, the creator of Rock Garden, Rag Doll Museum depicts the village scenario and was formed with an intention to create awareness about the village lifestyle and to use recycled products.

About the Museum

Situated inside the premises of one of the most famous attractions of Chandigarh, the Rag Doll Museum is an integral part of the Rock Garden, a signature landmark of Chandigarh. Inaugurated on the second death anniversary of Sh. Nek Chand, the brain behind the Rock Garden, on 12th June 2017, the Rag Doll Museum perfectly fits into the creative ambiance of the Rock Garden and enhances its beauty.

The museum beautifully depicts village scenes with elements such as chaupal, huts, trees, swings, etc., with over 200 dolls to create a life-size village scene. The dolls in the museum are made of cloth scraps collected by late Sh. Nek Chand from different tailor’s shops from across the city during the 1970s. The unique mud huts installed in the museum decorated with ornaments and artificial trees with branches spread out provide an illustrative ethnic framework to the dolls. You can see women draped in sarees and colorful clothing along with ornaments enjoying conversation with each other while spinning the charkhas, cooking, and celebrating festivals. Similarly, rag doll men wearing dhoti, kurta, ad pagris are depicted smoking hukkas, discussing day-to-day affairs in the village chaupal, meditating, or dancing during wedding festivities.

The idea behind creating this museum with these village sceneries was to inform the urban dwellers about the lifestyle of the rural people and to sensitize them about the problems and concerns rural people have so that they can appreciate their legacy. The underlined message of such kind of projects is not merely for entertainment or sensitizing purpose but for contributing to the environment by recycling and reusing the old waste items and make something useful out of them.