Get your fix of traditional Indian games in Mumbai

If youve always wished to do something on the weekend in Mumbai that doesnt involve loud music expensive brunches and binging then how about trying your luck at some games We arent talking about just any game but ones that our greatgrandmothers and the Mughal emperors playedNext weekend the Centre of ExtraMural Studies at the Mumbai Universitys Kalina campus is organising an ancient games weekend held in association with INSTUCEN Trust The centres faculty and students have gone back in time to recreate about a dozen games that were popularly played across the subcontinent With tweaks and regional variations these games were known by different names in various parts of the countryThe event is helmed by Raamesh Gowri Raghavan a researcher with INSTUCEN and two students at the department mdash architect Dr Radha A Sinha and Dnyaneshwari Kamath after they saw a tremendous interest among the public To help our readers get a feel of the event we headed to the Kalina campus on a weekday for a sneak peek We are accompanied by two friends to try our hands at three games by rolling dices and ensnaring tigers We realised that these centuriesold games are highly addictive and will bring out the competitive side in you So consider this as a statutory warningNavaraNavariRaghavan suggests we start with Ashta Chamma as its called in Telugu The version we play is called NavaraNavari which translates to husbandwife or groombride The game is based on the Ramayana It could refer to Ram and Sitas wedding or when Ram had to rescue her from Ravans hands in Lanka and bring her back home mdash essentially a man fetching a woman says RaghavanThe fourplayer game looks hardly intimidating with its small board and chess coins in pairs The ladies in the form of chess queens wait it out at the centre of the board while their malekings stand outside the board Dr Sinha says that originally the game was etched on temple floors and courtyards where people could gather and play a few roundsI am pitted against Dr Sinha and two student volunteers from the centre Your moves are decided by cowries and for the longest time into the game I am illfated to have the lowest score While other grooms race around the board mine moves at a disappointing speed To make things worse he gets knocked out by a competing groom who settles in the same square as my piece Had my groom been in one of the four forts on the board hed have been safeStill the game is far from over Once the couples are paired up they need to hurry back to the grooms place moving together Raghavan tells us that there is a catch mdash on the way back your cowries need to earn you even turns So if your couple gets four they can move two squares one for each piece As a couple they cant be struck down by single pieces he says Call it the power of love or strength in numbersRaghavan adds that ancient variations of the game dealt with caste politics I wouldnt mind a bit of gender role reversals though Let Sita rescue Ram for a changePallanguzhiPicsPradeep DhivarThe other game I try out came with a lot of nostalgia value Having spent summer holidays in Tamil Nadu it was common to see young girls sitting together and playing Pallanguzhi with tamarind seeds I never understood the game until a demo session was offered by student Yogini AatreyaThe game has a wooden board shaped like a muffin mould in two rows A twoplayer game each row represents your house Each cup is like a room comprising five cowries To win you need to empty the rooms and claim your opponents house entirely You do so by picking shells from one cup and distributing them in the others You keep emptying and distributing until you reach a hollow cup When you do you can claim the adjacent cups cowries in both your row and your opponentsIts seemingly simple but the game relies on probability The game is easily portable mdash something you can take to the park nearby or to your friends place and aimlessly while away time But where do you get one of these The one I played with belongs to Aatreyas family sourced from Bengaluru There are ecommerce platforms that retail these too but I think your local carpenter might get a kick out of fashioning one for youWagh BakriI got my friends Apurupa Vatsalya and Bhavin Bhatt to team up against the more expert student players for Wagh Bakri Tiger and Goat as its known here and one that was widely played in parts of Europe too Dr Sinha says that the team found a Wagh Bakri template carved on the floor of a temple near Osmanabad Oddly enough the stone had been transferred to the wall probably during repairs she says Still they got the template copied on a granite stone There are some beautiful textile ones made by the students and faculty too You may want one of those at this rateVatsalya and Bhatt play on vinyl copy Wagh Bakri is an intense absorbing strategy game in which one player assumes the role of the tiger and the other the goat The goats need to trap the tigers Else the tigers will jump over undefended goats and kill them If a tiger has his fill of five goats he wins If the goats are able to successfully trap all three tigers then the meek are indeed mighty The game is a lot like chess and can go on for hours Raghavan tells me that several ancient games are so as people played till dusk brought their games to a halt They would set the game aside carefully and resume it the next day he saysWhen June 1617 8 am 6 pmRegistration On the spot Rs 50 for individuals Rs 200 team of six per gameCall 26530266Also Read Mumbais First Open Garden Library Pretty And PoliticalCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates