The museum is spread over an area of 5184.5 sq.ft. and a stately winding staircase leads to its first floor location. The foyer branches into two sections. The two sections have over 160 glasscases, 1000 ft. long mounted on walls. The Shankar’s International Dolls Museum (SIDM) has the largest collection of costume dolls in the world. The Museum’s collection was inspired by a gift of a single doll which Shankar (K. Shankar Pillai– the doyen of political cartoonists in India) received from the Hungarian Ambassador in the early fifties to be given away as a prize for a Painting and Writing Competition. The frequent packing and unpacking resulted in damage to the dolls and hence, on the suggestion of Indira Gandhi, it was decided to plan a portion of the CBT’s building (under construction at the time) as a museum for the dolls.

About the collection: The museum began with 1000 dolls. Between 1965 and 1987 another 5000 were added. It was Shankar’s vision that if dolls, representative of the people of every country, were
collected and housed in one place it would open up a veritable window to the world for children. It was intended to be like a dreamland or a mini United Nations. With more than 6500 costume dolls from 85 countries, the collection is divided into three broad catagories such as

• Costume Dolls: Dolls dressed in authentic national costumes of the countries of their origin.
• Traditional Dolls: Dolls made in a particular style representative of a craft style of that country made of wood, clay, porcelain, and so on.
• Group Dolls: Collection of dolls representative of the religious and cultural scenes of their country.

It is the only museum with the largest collection of Costume Dolls in the world. As special collections, the Japanese Dolls in elaborate, kimonos and Samurai uniforms and U.K. dolls from the Queen’s collection costumed as Shakespeare, a doll of Henry VIII can be seen as prospective collections for exchange of exhibitions between India and U.K museums. These can be categorically centred around children’s interests while also reflecting intangible heritage of the culture related with dolls.

Another attraction of the museum is the section displaying authentic Indian costume dolls handcrafted by Shankar’s Dolls Designing and Production Centre attached to the museum. Unique among them are the Man and Woman of India, the Dances of India, the Brides of India, and the Tribes of India.

The other section displays dolls from Japan, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and India. There are also special life-size displays and a representative collection from the over 150 kinds of authentic Indian costume dolls made at the dolls workshop attached to the museum.