I Stumble and Fall

For the longest of time, Kreeda was about rediscovering old games, understanding their rules and reviving them. It was about games, and it was about play, and while I realized there were some learnings, to a great extent, I thought of those as frills. 

All that changed one day when I went with my mother to visit the Parthasarathy Swamy temple in Triplicane, Chennai. Walking in at the entrance of the temple, mesmerized by its beauty, antiquity and ambience, I stumbled and fell. That fall was to change my life in many ways.  

As I sat down to rub my toe, I realized that there were some lines cut on the ground on the doorstep next to me. As I started tracing them with my finger, I realized it could potentially be a game. It fascinated me and I sat there so long my family started to worry that I’d really injured myself. I hobbled off after them, but this image would not leave me.   

Slowly, more visits to more temples established the importance of traditional games in my mind, in a completely different way. I realized that I need not rely only on the oral tradition to learn about these games. I need not rely only on the memories of people anymore or on a few stray remarks or paragraphs in a book.  

I now had concrete evidence of games being played inscribed on the granite floor with mathematical precision. To me it was a vindication of everything I had been trying to do. I am no archaeologist or historian, and I could well accept the fact that the engravings on the floor could not be dated. But I was also intelligent enough to understand that the mathematical precision of the games on hard granite floors was evidence of skilled labour, not a stray visitor and graffiti.   

I was absolutely excited. The more I saw, the more my hunger and thirst for understanding traditional games and documenting them in these various temples and monuments grew. I visited more temples in the last few years to document the games that I have in my lifetime. Truth be told, I sometimes would come away not even knowing the main deity of the temple or visiting the sanctum except to peer at the floor and search for vestiges of games.   

There’s a story of a goatherd who named his favorite goat Krishna. Every day he would call to this goat – Krishna, Krishna, Krishna and somewhere along the way the goatherd acquired moksha for merely repeating the name of Krishna so many times. My mother would mock me saying if it was merely visiting the temples that mattered, I too would acquire moksha! 

I’ve seen more of the floors of temples than of any other part of it. I’ve been with tour groups where others have admired the architecture or the sculptures. They’ve listened to the history of the temples and monuments. While all of that mattered to me too, what finally mattered was the floor and the games inscribed on them.   

Perhaps my greatest pleasure was being in Mahabalipuram a year ago and documenting a game carved under this huge granite rock that history claims has not moved in hundreds of years. If that is true, then the game under it could well be more than a few 100 years old.   

It makes my research more important, more relevant and more exciting for every game inscribed on the floor has a story to tell. There is a tale behind it of human beings, of people with longings and beliefs and fears and dreams, who sought at some point to relax and share some fun and so inscribed a game on the floor to enjoy it.  

Every game I have photographed tells its own story, but that is the subject of another series of blogs. For now. I am on a mission to document games you find on floors of temples and monuments everywhere I go.  

If you do visit any, do look out for them, reach out to me if you want to know how to document them, and I will be happy to guide you, because with renovations, many of these vestiges of an important part of our culture are disappearing forever.   

As Shakespeare said, “Oh what a fall there was my countrymen,” except in Shakespeare’s case he was talking about the downfall of Caesar. In my case, I’m praying that that fall will bring a change to the way we perceive our traditional games in the years to come.