Today in the woods of digitalization,
children, young and old are found busy on mobiles playing games, reading books,
listening to music and learning. People are found less interacting and less
physically involved. But years ago people would find ways and create new entertaining
games for leisure. One such ancient game is Pallankuzhi also called Mancala.
There are lot of online Mancala game apps available on Internet.
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| Pallankuzhi |
The game is played between two players
using a wooden board having 14 pits (holes). Each pit contains 6 seeds, in some
places it is also played with 5 or 4seeds. The rule is to play in turns; the person
with first turn can start by picking all the seeds from any of the holes from
his/ her respective side. After picking the 6 seeds from say Pit A4 (see pic
above), the player has to drop the seeds one by one in the succeeding pits i.e.
pit A5, A6, A7, B7, B6, B5. Remember the game is played counter clockwise. The same player will continue to play by
picking all the seeds from the pit next to the pit into which last seed was
dropped i.e B5. So the player A will pick all the seeds from pit B4 and continue
to drop in counter clock direction. There are some strategies and important
things to remember:
1.
If the last seed falls into a
pit with an empty pit succeeding it, then the seeds in the pit beyond the empty
pit are captured as bonus by the active player.
2.
If the last seed falls into a
pit which is followed by 2 empty pits then the turn is over and the next player
starts playing.
3.
If in the process of dropping seeds, the pit
count comes to 4 then the respective pit owner captures those 4 seeds as bonus
and keeps it aside.
4.
If there are no seeds left in
any of the pits to move from either of the sides, then the round is over. The
seeds remaining in opponent’s pits are captured by the opponents as bonus.
In the next round the bonus
seeds are filled into the pits with 6 seeds each. If any of the pits are not
completely filled then that pit is considered useless and it is covered with a
leaf or paper and not used in the new round. The extra seeds left are kept
individually by the opponents. The game continues with the rules and ends with
a winner having maximum number of seeds as bonus.
In the past, the game, which is
based on the concept of ‘sowing and harvesting’, was played using tamarind
seeds, roadside pebbles or cowry shells. Today, if you order a set online, you
might be unwrapping a neatly-packaged cardboard box, complete with a board made
of highly-compressed waste wood, carefully-selected pure white pebbles, and an
elaborate list of rules.There is elaborate mention about it
in A Book of Historic Board Games by Damian Gareth Walker, and a documentation
by Irving Finkel.
Despite a strong mention
about communities gathering to play games, and temple floor patterns standing
as proof for the same, there is a tendency to ignore games while talking about
Indian heritage.
