CHENNAI: It was only a chanced discovery and a (perhaps fated) fall that brought etched remains of a traditional game on a temple floor to Vinita Sidhartha’s attention. But it was her curiosity about the subject that led to documentation of the same and the subsequent 2021 calendar that showcased the concept across temples of Tamil Nadu. However, despite garnering people’s attention, the calendar may be shrinking in evidence, as temple renovations continue to erase the marks of a legacy.
“In 2009, we went to a bunch of temples and started documenting the games. Once my interest started growing, I started to understand what you learn from every game; not just motor skills or hand-eye coordination but the philosophical underpinnings of the game itself.
An event with historian Pradeep Chakravarthy, along with other research I was doing, pointed to the fact that all these games are rooted in our own philosophy, the way we think, address issues and how look at life. But later, on a visit to Kapaleeswarar temple, I realised that many games I had documented in 2009 no longer remained because of the renovation of the temple.
And while I had a photo of the game or ‘board’, I wasn’t able to tell people where it exactly was in the temple,” shares Vinita. With the threat of renovations, she became more diligent with her documentation a couple of years ago, capturing the game in the context of where they were (within the temple premises) along with video walkthroughs.
As far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, these games are commonly seen in temples, explains Chithra Madhavan, historian. “You can see them on the floors of many ancient temples, in various parts, especially the mandapas where people used to sit/talk and while away time. You can also see them often in the prakaram, the enclosure where you do the pradakshanam. These are indigenous games that we have had for centuries. We literally have a hard copy/direct evidence of people carving it on the floor of the temples, preserved till today,” she adds.
Campaigns of change
However, the preservation of these games is up against renovations and the same public support that pushed Kreeda to create a physical calendar is needed to preserve what the images showed off. To mobilise support, Kreeda is launching its signature campaign today called ‘Preserve our games, protect our floors’.
Vinita plans to keep the campaign open till the end of the year and is hoping to have a significant amount of signatures to achieve her goal; also putting out feelers, talking to people, and beginning a conversation. “If I can get two, three or five thousand signatures, it gives me strength to go talk to people about what I have been doing, the material I have gathered. I want to go to ASI, the government, and bring people together and say ‘I will help but let us not lose this’. If you ask me how many signatures I need: as many as I do to convince the powers that this is important,” she says.
Part two of the campaign will entail reaching out to people to become friends of the campaign and work with Kreeda, where they can begin documenting their temple visits. “I can’t physically go to every temple, so say, 100 people go and document and send us the pictures, I can go through them and identify the treasure troves that I can later visit for documentation,” she adds.
Need for a movement
Various reasons indicated to Vinita that there is a need for such a campaign. Coming across games under the Butterball that could date the temple in Mahabalipuram, identifying games that are not normally seen in Chennai (leading to a conclusion that artisans from, say, Karnataka and southern Maharashtra worked on the building or renovation since the game is popular there), finding what seemed like an unfinished kolam that made an appearance in two other temples, and realising that some games are on different stones from the rest of the temple (indicating it has been placed from somewhere else) — once she realised all this, she understood more of the game, its history, where it came from, what patterns we could notice, which games continue to be popular and which we have wiped from our memory.
Chithra adds that there is nothing to be gained by removing these games but a lot instead to gain by keeping them. “Temple renovations are removing many things other than traditional games as well, such as inscriptions, and some sculptures get defaced if one is careless. Traditional games do suffer a lot since they are directly on the floor. People who are doing this need to be sensitive to the fact that they are removing a slice of history,” she says, adding that while visitors look at these games all the time, they often see it with unseeing eyes. “They take it for granted and don’t even bother to ask what these are,” she mentions. Perhaps, now knowing what we do, we could be more aware of what to be on the lookout for.
Visit kreedagames.com to join the campaign.