IndiaPost.com - This Holidays, gift you kids Rama and Hanuman toys

India Post News Service

NEW YORK: Indian American parents who might be tired of buying American action figure toys for their kids can take heart. Now they can introduce their Superhero-crazed children to Indian epic heroes, thanks to Kridana Toys, which has unveiled the first ever action figures based on the Ramayana.

Founded by Mahender Swami Nathan, Pennsylvania-based Kridana (Sanskrit for toy or plaything) is a toy company focused on bringing the great Indian epics to new generations through the power of play. T

he company has just launched its first products – action figures of Lord Rama and Hanuman – made with the involvement of some of the toy industry’s top craftsmen. "We are the very first toy company based on the great two-millenium old Indian epics," says Swami Nathan excitedly. "We are selling for the first time this Holiday in the US and Canada."

Kridana has also launched its first comic book series, which brings to life key vignettes for both Rama and Hanuman as first told in the Ramayana some 2000 years ago and now retold through the inks and colors of today’s top comic book artists, including the world renowned Mike Turner of Aspen Comics who drew the inaugural cover. Swami Nathan claims already, orders and reactions from customers have been beyond expectations. "While about 50% of our orders are, of course, from Indian parents, the other 50% have come from parents and collectors who are interested in our multi-cultural, innovative, fun, and safe products."

"As a child growing up in India and the United States, I was captivated by this world of heroes, demons, adventures and intrigue," says Swami Nathan. "While I treasured my Transformers and GI Joes, I longed to bring Hanuman to my friends’ houses to save the day.

As an adult, I’m excited to finally bring the Ramayana’s incomparable heroism, honor, duty and love into children’s everyday worlds in the ways that they enjoy and understand — the 3-D play of toys and the 2-D stories of comics." "We’re all about inspiring children through the power of play," he adds. "Our design philosophy from the beginning was that we seek to represent Hanumanji and Shri Ram in a respectful and artistic manner.

We appeal to modern children, but also don’t want to be out of place in a Golu/Navatri doll puja." Swami Nathan says Kridana toys are collectible quality but durable enough to stand up to whatever kids can dish out. "We might just be the first toy company in the world to put our product safety tests on display on our website," he goes on to say. "We feel so passionately about safety that we’re taking the unusual step of putting our test results on kridana.com, for all to see.

It’s true that some of these pages read like a chemistry report, but, we’re an educational toy company!" Kridana toys are phthalate-free and rigorously tested to ensure each and every one is lead free. "We chose to manufacture with a 30-year veteran of the toy industry, and all of our production runs are rigorously tested by independent, 3rd-party labs to ensure both the toys’ mechanical safety and the absence of dangerous lead levels in their paint.

Both Hanuman and Rama are made from non-phthalate PVC plastic, an environmentally friendly plastic that is safer for our children," Swami Nathan informs. Many European countries, as well as California starting in 2009, mandate the usage of non-phthalate PVCs in children’s toys for this very safety concern. Says Swami Nathan, "My first question, given all the news about toy recalls from big manufacturers was whether I’d be able to trust a tiny company making its first products. While the Kridana toys are made in China, its site goes out of its way to prove its safety credentials." The Product Safety section of the website says:

‘Our toys are produced to the highest standards in a modern factory which we have inspected ourselves. They are tested rigorously by an outside, 3rd-party lab: SGS Group of Switzerland. And, when we say we test, we don’t test once or twice; we pull toys from throughout the actual production run to send to SGS, ensuring that the toys which pass SGS’s standards are the same ones your child is playing with at home’.