Games are a common passion, a common pastime which cross all sections of the community. Playing or watching games form a highly significant aspect of culture, both because of their importance in peoples lives and their capacity to bring families and communities together and because of the degree of creativity and skill that go into […]
Annual summer vacations in my grandparents’ home, in Gobichettipalayam, a small town in Tamil Nadu, to which my paternal kannadiga ancestors had migrated was a world, completely apart, from our normal convent-school-centered childhood. Walking barefoot in the theruvus, streets, swimming in the vaykal, canal, making cow-dung cakes and playing traditional games, were new experiences. In […]
Nepal’s national board game is bagh chal, literally ‘move the tigers’ (bagh = tiger; chal = move). This is a fascinating and engrossing game requiring concentration and skill. The game is played on a lined board with 25 intersecting points and requires two players. One player has four tigers, the other has 20 goats – […]
The pachisa game is a combination of Ludo and Shatranj, the Indian chess game played as long ago as the time of the great Hindu epic Mahabharata. The pachisa game played on a five piece painted wooden board with four sides and a center. This game has received a boost with its popularity among the […]