One mistake and the whole game goes wrong,” Archana says. If a safe zone has to be on the third row, second column, the artisan has to make sure it is at the exact spot. It isn’t a piece of painting or an artwork. But the actual work began when we had to decide who would make the games for us.
We met people who were extensively into playing games. Then we sat with our grandparents and wrote down the games they played. “We first made a list of all the games we knew. Until a year ago, Archana and Sangeeta occasionally held exhibitions in the city and overwhelmed with the response, the duo decided to set up a retail store. To curate the 150 games available at the store wasn’t an easy feat, Archana says. Taking grandma’s help to finding artisans Since the games are customised, the raw materials are not procured in bulk,” Archana adds. Since some of the games are made using fabrics, we use hand-painted kalamkaari, and for others, we used Sholapur wood. For non-toxic games and articles, we procured natural, chemical-free sources to dye them. “All the games in the store are hand-made. The duo not only has expertise in board games but also sells toys, rattles, tic-tac-toe games, pamparams (ancient tops) and non-toxic masks.
During our childhood days, such games helped a great deal in honing our counting capabilities.” It’s a strategic game where the players have to think a lot and be calculative. “Goats and Tigers is also an equally popular game, where one player gets the goats and the other the tigers,” Archana explains, adding, “If the tiger has to win, it has to kill all the goats and for the goat to win, it has to remain defensive and surround the tigers. The game progresses as the players move upward on the board according to the points they score. If all four shells fall with their mouth up, an ‘ashta’ is formed and the player scores an additional four points. For every four shells landing with the mouth down, a ‘chamma’ is formed and the player gets a point. With faint similarities to Ludo, Ashta Chamma is a two or four-player board game played using cowry shells. It is one of the oldest traditional games in India that even finds a mention in the Mahabharata epic.
One of the most popular games, according to Archana, is the Ashta Chamma, played using dice or cowry shells (smooth, shiny shells with a slit-like opening). Good Old Games is not a game parlour but is a retail outlet where kids and grown-ups can have a look at the myriad board games and pick one after reading the instruction manuals kept beside each game. “We realised we had not lost touch and thought why not introduce our children to the games we played, rather than just describing our lively childhoods to them,” she tells TNM. One day, as Sangeeta fell sick, the two friends wanted to kill time and played a board game which was lying around the house.
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