World Doll Day: Meet Paño, Delhi’s larger-than-life doll

With the will to be extraordinary in her endeavours, Sanskriti Sharma, a fashion design graduate has set new bars stand out from the crowd with the aid of a big doll head. Seen around Lodhi Gardens, Janpath and Khan Market, among other popular spots in the city, this World Doll Day (June 10), she talks about her inspiration.

Have you come across a walking doll in the Capital? This World Doll Day (June 10) , meet Sanskriti Sharma, a Delhi-based digital artist, who has a flair for something quite extraordinary. With an audacious fashion statement, she proudly parades around Delhi but only after she puts on a colossal doll head, Paño. Strangers gawk, children giggle, and rumors spread like wildfire. Love her or laugh at her, but one thing’s for sure: Sanskriti Sharma is doll that cannot go unnoticed!

Sankriti Sharma, aka Paño, at the busy streets of Gandhi Market.

Sanskriti Sharma hails from Patna and lives in Chattarpur, Delhi where she runs her workshop to create new ideas for Paño.

“Paño represents how having an alien vision of the world helps you notice the small details and diversity which is generally missed by the consumed human eyes,” says Sharma, a resident of Chhattarpur. The fashion design from a Jaipur-based college started her endeavour in 2018, assuming it will create a way for her to escape an overexposed generation. The 28-year-old was forced to pause during the pandemic, but is back on the city roads now. “My imagination lives in my big head. It took me a year to create the big head of Paño, and gives me a break from the loop of reality. Through Paño, I want to bring the colours of fantasy into the digital marketing industry mostly saturated by sameness breaking the set frame of the general simplistic activities of marketing. With this, I also stand out in my collaborations for fashion, footwear and lifestyle.”

In her own little word in the head where Sharma is untouched with worldly opinions, Paño poses at Lodhi Garden in Delhi.

Paño has visited Lodhi Gardens, Janpath, Khan Market, and other popular spots in the city, and chooses to calm the curiosity of people while focusing only on the good things they have to say. “Inside my big head I can hear and feel things that are going around me during a shoot. But inside it, everything is untouched from reactions and curiosity of people around me though after every shoot I do meet people for a short while where mostly I am told - what I am doing is unique and rare, and Paño cannot go unnoticed,” Sharma asserts.

Author tweets @maisha_scribbles

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