NEW DELHI // When Raghu Dharmendra visits temples in remote corners of India, he peers at the floor. If necessary, he takes photographs.
Inevitably, somebody will ask him what he is doing. If he has found what he is looking for, Mr Dharmendra points to lines etched into the floor that make up the template for an old Indian board game.
In the olden days before cardboard and plastic, he explains, the floor would have formed the game board.
"And then people will get excited, and they'll talk about playing the game and tell us how it's played," said Mr Dharmendra, who designs board sets for traditional games for Ramsons Kala Prathishtana, a Mysore-based crafts foundation.
Mr Dharmendra's search in India's small towns and villages has yielded him the details of roughly 40 games, 21 of which his foundation has produced for sale. Every two years, he organises Kreeda Kaushalya, a tournament of traditional board games.
Across the country, a handful of individuals such as Mr Dharmendra are trying to revive interest in traditional Indian board games. Many of them are so ancient that they have travelled overseas and, in turn, inspired some of the West's most venerable games.
Pachisi, dating back to roughly the 6th century, gave rise to Ludo. Another game - called Gyan Chaupar in north India and Paramapadam Sopanam in the south - inspired Snakes & Ladders and may have even contributed key elements of The Game of Life, Milton Bradley's 1860 board game.
But board games in the India of today, competing as they do with computer games, television and the internet, are rapidly fading away.
Indeed, some are on the verge of extinction. Mr Dharmendra cites the example of Tablan, of which he has only ever seen two specimens.
"We don't even properly know the rules of this game yet," he said. "There's a rumour of one family living in north Karnataka that knows the rules well. But we haven't yet been able to go there to find them."
The Ramsons handicrafts showroom in Mysore is about 40 years old, but the foundation's efforts to support craft communities was started only in 1995. Its interest in board games began in 2000, spurred, according to Mr Dharmendra, by one question: "Why aren't we able to find the board games we played as children?"
It is the same question, in essence, that spurred Vinita Sidhartha to start Kreeda Games, a Chennai-based producer of traditional Indian board games.
When the company started in August 2002, she made a few samples and placed them in a couple of stores. "We were sold out in a week," she recalled with a laugh.
Kreeda now has about 20 traditional games on the market and sells more than 15,000 sets a year.
One popular game is Pallanguzhi, a game of arithmetic strategy that uses tamarind seeds or cowry shells as counters. An approximate equivalent called Mancala - named after the Arabic word naqala, for "moved" - is played in many other parts of the world and is thought to be at least 1,300 years old.
Such games, Ms Sidhartha said, bring a certain spontaneity with them.
"Play has become so structured today. When we were kids, we 'played' cricket. Now we 'learn' cricket.
"Parents don't have time to play with their children, and they meet their cousins maybe once or twice a year," she said, recalling how the disappearing joint family system provided a ready supply of playmates.
A game like Pallanguzhi can subtly teach young children the principles of counting and arithmetic, Ms Sidhartha said. But more importantly, it is just fun.
"Anybody who sees these games and learns about them wants to play them. Kids have a blast," she said. "The challenge is really to tell people about our games, because we don't have the major marketing money that the big toy companies have."
Kavade, a toy store in Bangalore, employs small handicrafts groups to produce versions of traditional games and game counters. GS Sreeranjini, who founded Kavade five years ago, said it sells 13 board games in addition to five dozen other Indian games, such as spinning tops and pick-up sticks.
Kavade also holds tournaments in which teams made up of grandparents and grandchildren are invited to participate. "The tournaments are great bonding opportunities, because otherwise people live in such nuclear families these days," Ms Sreeranjini said.
She said games that were popular in many Indian households just 30 or 40 years ago are disappearing. "If you look at today's 20- or 25-year-olds, they hardly even recognise these games."
For Ms Sidhartha, this is what makes her efforts to preserve traditional games worthwhile.
"Even if an additional 10 people in the next generations play these games because I introduced them, "that would make me very happy," she said.
ssubramanian@thenational.ae
Scoreline
Al Wasl 1 (Caio Canedo 90 1')
Al Ain 2 (Ismail Ahmed 3', Marcus Berg 50')
Red cards: Ismail Ahmed (Al Ain) 77'
In Search of Mary Shelley: The Girl Who Wrote Frankenstein
By Fiona Sampson
Profile
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
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THE SPECS
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No more lice
Defining head lice
Pediculus humanus capitis are tiny wingless insects that feed on blood from the human scalp. The adult head louse is up to 3mm long, has six legs, and is tan to greyish-white in colour. The female lives up to four weeks and, once mature, can lay up to 10 eggs per day. These tiny nits firmly attach to the base of the hair shaft, get incubated by body heat and hatch in eight days or so.
Identifying lice
Lice can be identified by itching or a tickling sensation of something moving within the hair. One can confirm that a person has lice by looking closely through the hair and scalp for nits, nymphs or lice. Head lice are most frequently located behind the ears and near the neckline.
Treating lice at home
Head lice must be treated as soon as they are spotted. Start by checking everyone in the family for them, then follow these steps. Remove and wash all clothing and bedding with hot water. Apply medicine according to the label instructions. If some live lice are still found eight to 12 hours after treatment, but are moving more slowly than before, do not re-treat. Comb dead and remaining live lice out of the hair using a fine-toothed comb.
After the initial treatment, check for, comb and remove nits and lice from hair every two to three days. Soak combs and brushes in hot water for 10 minutes.Vacuum the floor and furniture, particularly where the infested person sat or lay.
Courtesy Dr Vishal Rajmal Mehta, specialist paediatrics, RAK Hospital
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Cryopreservation: A timeline
- Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
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- Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
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- Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
Price: From Dh98,800
Available: Now
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
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Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
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Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The%20specs%3A%202024%20Mercedes%20E200
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