The art of working on a piece of soft wood and shaping it into a magical toy is special to Channapatna in the state of Karnataka.
As you drive through Channapatna, you notice the colourful stores lining the highway and soon you realise why the town is called the Toy Town. Almost everyone here is a skilled craftsman or woman working on lathe machines, mixing vegetable dyes with lacquer and then applying it smoothly on the toys.