Seeds, beans, pulses. In India, we have a wide variety of them, often just sitting on our kitchen shelves. As I deepened my research into traditional games, I realised that many sedentary were created around or inspired by material found in the homes and living spaces. And the kitchen was always a rich source of inspiration.
As a communication professional, I was always fascinated by the poem Blind Men and the Elephant by John Godfrey Saxe and a game we used to play in numerous training programmes. It involved describing an object to someone who cannot see it. I was always intrigued by how visually we see the world and how necessary it is to go beyond that and involve our other senses.
The game of mixed seeds taught to me by an old granny, in many ways, reflected the same concept. The game involved mixing up a bowl of nuts, seeds, and pulses such as channa, rajma, tamarind seeds, little peas, black-eyed beans, and so on. A person is then blindfolded and asked to pick a particular kind from the bowl based on the description of the onlookers and only the sense of touch. The trick is to pick as many as possible within a set time. The lady who was narrating it laughed at the memory of how people would try to describe the seeds by colour.
I have played this game in many events, and I am always amused at how words like red or brown creep in and the annoyance of the person picking as time is being wasted. The other thing I have noticed is that people struggle with shapes. As most of these are not regular shapes, there are sometimes no single words to describe them. The tamarind seed is a great example. Again, looking at it through the lens of a communication professional, I find that people are often more comfortable with things that can be neatly labelled or described. If they can’t, it pushes them out of their comfort zone.
Another game of communication is Passing the Secret — a popular game in schools. A group of children sit in a circle, and one initiates a secret that is passed around until it comes back to the sender often completely garbled. There are wonderful games that have been created by our ancestors — games that lead to fun and laughter and yet buried within them are simple lessons or exercises that can make us think. However, we must choose to do so.
Vinita Sidhartha
vinita@kreedagmes.com
The writer is an author and the founder of Kreeda, an organisation reviving traditional games