28-05-2025
Inside India's first Lego store in Gurugram
I still remember the first time I held a Lego brick. It was in the mid-80s, and my father had brought back a police command base set from one of his trips abroad. It soon transformed into a suburban home, then a makeshift moon base as we added bricks and pieces from other sets over the years. Fast forward nearly 40 years, and life's come full circle as I travel the world and drop into Lego stores to pick up sets that I can build with my now 12-year-old. Yet, each visit to stores abroad, from New York to London, has always raised one question—when will it come to India?
Well, that question has finally been put to rest as Lego threw open the doors to its first Lego Certified Store at Ambience Mall in Gurugram. Spanning 4,500 square feet, it is the brand's largest store in South Asia. Walking into it felt like stepping through a portal, with the scent of fresh plastic bricks, the multicoloured explosion of sets lining the shelves (everything from the Friends and Icons to the Technic and the Botanicals collections), fully built sets on display, play tables, and features that are essential to Lego stores, like a Pick-a-Brick Wall, Build-a-Minifigure Station and a rare Minifigure Factory.
Then there are the uniquely Indian models and installations—a near-life-sized cricketer minifigure greeting fans as they enter the store, and a 13,589-piece mosaic of India Gate. The pièce de resistance is a scaled-down 76,000-piece model of the front of a typical Indian truck; fans can pop behind the wheel for a photo. Bhavana Mandon, country manager at Lego India, says the brand has been very mindful to deliver a rich Indian experience, and that little elements of Delhi and its cultural fabric will be visible across the store.
John Seemon, a techie and a passionate Lego collector for over 25 years, acknowledges the tantalizing role that the built-up sets play in influencing his purchases: 'More than once, I've ended up buying a set that wasn't on my radar…something about seeing the finished build pulls you in…the kind of inspiration you don't get when shopping online".
On launch day, the store was bursting at the seams. In between the squeals of children and adults posing for photographs with their purchases, I caught a quiet moment at the Build-a-Minifigure station where an eight-year-old girl outfitted a character to look like herself, and exclaimed, 'This is me, Mumma!" to her mother. In that moment, I was taken back 40 years, to the kid who first discovered his lifelong love for this 'highly sophisticated interlocking brick system' we know as Lego.
If you're new to the brand, walking into a LEGO store can be a viscerally overwhelming experience, even as the stores are organized neatly into the various themes and categories (toddlers, adults) for most folks to walk right up to the shelves that most interest them. Close at hand are the LCS staff, all of whom are well trained to answer questions, offer recommendations, and assist with purchases, and many of them share that infectious love for building.
For a brand that's been aspirational in India and sustained by generations of parents bringing back sets when they travelled abroad, the availability has improved over the past five years, with big toy retailers and e-commerce platforms stepping in. The store adds a touch-and-feel experience for the growing Lego fandom in India, from the interactive play zones where children can sit and build—no screens, no instruction, just raw imagination at work—to the Pick-a-Brick wall, where serious builders can buy large quantities of specific bricks for their custom builds.
Vimal Sasidharan, a Bengaluru-based commercial pilot and a collector with close to 100 sets, says he is 'always blown away by the seeing life-sized builds in stores, and the ability to interact with incredibly complex builds up close serves as a reminder of how playful and limitless creativity can be".
Lego collectors and builders, this writer included, have often bemoaned the fact that India trailed global launches by months, and some sets never came to Indian stores. Seemon says he has sourced sets and parts from abroad in the past, and had to 'deal with international shipping, and pay customs. It's been a bit of a mission every time". The certified store is likely to address this gaping void, with near-same-day availability as the rest of the world.
Dhara Mehta, a media professional turned education entrepreneur, who was introduced to Lego via her three-year-old's interest in the sets, runs an activity centre in Mumbai that aims to spark creativity and imagination through these bricks. As a learning tool for children, it improves fine motor skills, spatial reasoning and problem-solving abilities while fostering creativity, patience and social skills, she says. 'This is not just a toy for kids but a superb hobby for adults to pick up as well," she adds. Ritam Bhatnagar, a media entrepreneur, is another adult super-fan who created a custom Lego mosaic for the launch.
For AFOLs (adult fans of Lego) and long-term faithfuls, many of whom have kept the fandom alive despite the odds, the store is a place for community, to congregate with like-minded fans. Some, as Seemon describes it, see it as a pilgrimage, where fans of all ages are welcomed. And leave, likely with lighter wallets, happier.
Fan's Glossary
AFOL: Adult Fan of Lego
MINIFIGURE/MINIFIG: Little Lego people included in most sets
MOC: My Own Creation, anything built with Lego bricks without instructions
BUILDER: Lego fan whose primary interest is building MOCs
COLLECTOR: Lego fan whose primary interest is collecting official sets
STUD/ANTI-STUD: The circular bumps on the pieces that fit inside the anti-studs below another piece to form Lego's interlocking system
