Text Credit: Rochelle D’Souza    Photos: indiantraditionalgames.wordpress.com   

Every evening after school my mother and her siblings would run home, strip off their uniforms and rush to play. A different game was designated for very month and season. In the windy months they’d make kites; sticking china paper onto broomsticks with mashed rice that they’d steal from the kitchen. In the summer they’d collect their ‘annas’ (old unit of currency) to buy beautiful glass marbles, burrow shallow holes in the ground and played ‘kach’ in a shady patch behind the house. Some days they’d play ‘kuttiyumkolum’ on the beach, whacking sticks up into the air and whacking each other and in the damp months of monsoon, as the rains poured down outside and flooded the front yard, they would sit indoors with all the manjadikurus and cowrie shells they’d picked up on the beach and play ‘chogi’ and ‘pallankuzhi’.

During the summer vacations, while I would be lazing around all day watching TV and skulking around the house, my mother would tell me of all these stories from her childhood and of all the times she and her 12 siblings spent outdoors, soaking up the sun and playing all sorts of games. Celebrating all things nostalgic this month, FWD Life decided to revisit the games our parents indulged in during their childhood, games that today’s millennial probably hasn’t even heard of, one’s that they ought to put down their cellphones and ipads and go out and play.

Kuttiyumkolum

A circle is drawn in the grown and a small stick – the kutti – is placed within. The idea of the game is that a denner (first player) uses a koll – stick – to lift the kutti off the ground and strike it out of the circle into the distance surrounding it. If any of the children (players) manage to tap or hit the kutti, the player who took the first strike from the circle will be out. If the peg hits the ground, then the players next to it has the chance of hitting it towards the circle. If it falls into the circle, then the denner is out. If not, the denner has another chance with the stick and the kutti within the circle. It is believed that this game originated over 2500 years ago.

Pallankuzhi

Though it initially originated in Tamil Nadu, the Pallanguzhi game was widely popular in Kerala as well. It was designed centuries ago to help improve hand-eye coordination and to learn to count. Pallanguzhi requires a wooden board with 14 holes, two rows with 7 holes each. This makes 14 cups in the board. The game needs two players and cowrie shells, pebbles or manjadikuru seeds – used as tokens. The rules pertain a certain number of shells, and each player distributes the shells in each hole/cup. The rules of the game are mainly based on the capture of tokens by the winning player. The player, while putting in his/her tokens shouldn’t have an empty hole after the tokens are over. If he/she gets an empty hole, then the rival player captures the tokens.

Seven Tiles

Seven Stones is a game infused with the true culture and charm of Kerala. Seven stones or broken pieces of tile are one over the other and the idea behind the game is to knock down the entire stack. Each player has three chances to hit the stack, and if unsuccessful, has to hand over the ball to the next player.

Kach (Goli)

Kach is a game played with marbles. Shallow holes are created in the ground and players use their marbles and they have to hit a selected target using the marbles. The winner of the game gets all the marbles for himself.

Gutte

This traditional game is played by both children and adults. This simple game requires 5 pieces of small stones/cowrie shells. Players throw one of the stones/shells in the air and pick other stones/shalles from the ground before catching the one they threw in mid-air. The idea is not do it without dropping the one in the air.

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Conceptualisation and Words by Likhitha P Nair    Photographs by Aghil Menon

FEELS LIKE YESTERDAY

Azeez Baba | Fort Kochi

The vigour in his tone when he talks about music matches the life in his smile. Azeez Baba has been creating songs since a time when music production was not just a hasty, hurried hour’s work. The slow-paced times when a whole orchestra practiced for hours before a recording, and making a mistake was unforgivable. “Back then, music was made to stay in people’s hearts – to be hummed and caressed.” he remembers.

Like while making tunes for legendary movie ‘Mughal-E-Azam’, music director Naushad roamed about Delhi, clicking pictures and studying the soul of the city. “What is that new thing that makes everyone a singer? You send your voice through it and you suddenly sound perfect?” he enquired. “Autotune?”, I asked hesitantly, for which he smirked. “Melody must return,” Baba cherished.

STAYING ROOTED

Bijibal | Bodhi Studio

Bodhi Studio welcomes you with serenity. Sitting by his iMac, Bijibal posed dubiously for our photographer. This National Award-winning composer is a musical Midas. When I met him few years back at a discussion, I remember him saying that music is like the smell of rain-kissed soil – something to be felt with your senses.

Looking around his studio, I ask him, “does technology make it less real?” He said music had no evolution, only its presentation has. “Technology increases possibilities. Syncopation of syllables or other such surprises to be used as toppings. No artist can submit to technology. Even when it is created technically, music can only be polished emotionally,” he said.

PULP ‘FRICTION’

TVG Menon | Ernakulam

“Can I keep my cap on?” his honest request halfway through the photo session made us smile. TVG Menon is a multilingual cartoonist, and a Kerala Cartoon Academy Fellow. He has been drawing since the 1970s, since the days he was employed with Bharat Heavy Electronics Limited (BHEL) as an electrical engineer. When he retired in 2000, he had no second thoughts on what he wanted to do.

“Computers give you details. But there is nothing like the feel of pencil tip on paper.” Menon likes to draw his cartoons, and then scan and upload them, a habit he started recently. “Someone told me Facebook is a good medium to spread your work.” He admits the convenience technology offers. “Earlier, colouring a myriad used to take up a whole day. But digitally, it can be done in minutes!” he said, while I observed in awe his pouch full of colour pencils and sketch book.

DRAWING THE LINE

Vimal Chandran | Bengaluru

His “Unposted Letters” are meticulously crafted impressions of romance. Vimal Chandran was an engineer who decided one morning that he could be an artist. His studio named ‘Papercats’ is a hub of creativity – a cradle of colours. “As a child, I loved watercolours. The problem with that is that if you make a mistake you cannot mask it. It never becomes what you want it to be.”

Alternatively, Vimal is attracted to the features of digital drawing. He feels it doesn’t restrict one’s creative flow. “You don’t have to hold back on making a correction because you will ruin the frame,” he added. Even then, he thinks paper is a legacy that will always find its way back. “We try to make digital sketches with paper texture. It is a common thing,” he says. Technology makes skill easier, but Vimal assures that it has not, and never will change the way art is conceived and transferred. “Computers can’t tell you what to draw. It only assists,” he pointed out.

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