Forty three year old Patil is an unembarrassed member of a global species called AFOL ( Adult Fans of Lego) which, for some reason, is pronounced 'awful'. This community comprises serious adult collectors and builders of the popular line of Danish toys that have graduated from being a set of clunky blocks with immovable yellow men to tediously minute pieces with sophisticated mini figures. At 5,922 pieces, the Taj Mahal Lego set, for instance, is the biggest in the world and costs in the region of Rs 30,000.
In the world of the AFOL, who globally contribute to 5% of the Danish company's income, "elements" almost always mean colourful bricks and "studs" refer to the round protrusions on top of these bricks. Though they like building huge sets, they find true joy in defying the instruction manual to come out with original structures. The glass centre table at 34 year old Dominic David's modest home in Malad holds within it an entire city that stemmed from his imagination. It started with a church and later, expanded to accommodate a pizza corner, a fire station, an antique shop, a departmental store, a bank among other things. "This is now my one year old daughter's learning table," says David, a VFX artist who has collected 450 LEGO sets since 2005, most of them from the Star Wars and Cars stable.
In a Batman t-shirt and chequered shorts, David looks young for a 34 year old - a fact he attributes to his passion. But there was a phase when he would feel embarrassed purchasing these toys whose age bar used to be "upto 14". "I used to get them gift wrapped on purpose," he says.
There are times when these fans, who can now identify a mini figure merely by feeling its packet, buy an entire set for just one element. Patil, who wanted to imitate the art decor elements of South Mumbai buildings, embellished his ornate KFC building with Lego dragon heads and elephant teeth sourced from different sets. The logo on the building came from deliberately consumed KFC ketchup packets.
Space, of course, is a perennial issue for these AFOLs. Both Patil, who has spent close to Rs 20 lakh on his collection so far, and Bangalore's John Seemon, who owns 15 of the world's top 20 Lego sets including the Sydney Opera House, have broken down walls and merged two flats to display their creations. Seemon, one of India's "master builders", is a techie who even uses Lego as a learning aid for corporate training and also schoolchildren. "It is a great way to get kids to read," says Seemon, praising the intuitive ability of children. Once when he asked children to make a bridge, a bunch of them, who ran out of blue bricks, fused the river with brown bricks and called it "a contaminated river". Another bunch added a spiral staircase near the bridge "in case of an emergency".
While building, these adult fans go into a trance-like state. Patil's mind doesn't register his wife's comments while David's tummy forgets it's hungry. Lego's tagline 'Just Imagine' is something the Patils have adopted as their spiritual mantra. "We visualise every job being done," says Patil, who is planning to come out with a Lego museum in Alibaug. Their preoccupation with structure, order and symmetry makes these AFOLs immune from the vagaries of work life. When Dominic David was going through a turbulent phase at work, a while ago, friends found his calm unsettling. "I am happy. All my money is in front of me," says David, who has spent almost Rs 5 lakh on Lego so far. "Even after I go, my wife can sell this off."
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