CHENNAI: The sheer variety of traditional Indian board games has always amazed me. At first glance there are dice games and strategy games. But to a person who studies games and gameplay and the essence behind these games. There is so much more!
Take dice games and the way game pieces move around the board. We have Chaupad or Daayakattam played in a symmetric cross where all game pieces begin at different points, move around the board and return to the point of origin. Then we have Snakes and Ladders or Parama Padam where all game pieces start at one point and end at another point.
Interestingly, there are a whole range of other dice games that we will explore in greater detail in the coming articles. But what is worth mentioning is that in some games, the game pieces begin with two players at two different points and end at the same point. In others, the two players begin at two different points and end at two different points.
And then there is another version where the two players begin at the same point and end at two different points. The sheer variety is mind boggling and almost a metaphor for life where everyone has a different journey, and no two journeys can be the same just like no two games are the same, or the paths taken by players are not the same.
Yet the variety in board games is not limited to movement or the shape of the board or concept. It is more. Much more. And if I had to pick a game where the gameplay fascinates me the most it would go to the Tiger and Goat Game — Aadu Puli Aatam, Bagh aur Bakri, Puli Meka to cite some of the local names.
The boards too come in all shapes and sizes, but perhaps the board which is most popular of all is the one described by Robert Kanigel in his book about the mathematical genius — “(Ramanujam) and his mother understood each other. They talked the same language, enjoyed one another’s intelligent company, shared the same intensity of feeling.
When he was young, the two of them duelled at Goats and Tigers, played with pebbles, on a grid resembling a perspective view of railroads tracks receding to the horizon, crossed by other tracks perpendicular to them. Three “tigers” sought to kill fifteen “goats” by jumping them, as in checkers, while the goats tried to encircle the tigers, immobilizing them. The game demanded logic, strategy, and fierce, chess like concentration. The two of them revelled in it.”
A two-player game, what makes it most exciting is the number of game pieces for the players is not even. Variations exist that go from one tiger and three goats to five tigers and 25 goats. Originating in peasant homes, this is a hunt game where one player tries to hunt the other. The asymmetry of the game where one player has three game pieces as against 15 of the other; where one player’s role is to hunt and be the aggressor or the tiger against the role of the goat which is to protect each other and immobilise the tiger; results in what looks like a seemingly unequal game.
However — and this is what makes the game so unique — both sides are evenly matched. What one must remember though is this. Every goat sacrificed weakens the chance of winning — a true community model where every member must be protected and must work together to overcome and neutralise the threats represented by the tiger. What truly wonderful lessons are captured in our traditional games!