The Pallankuzhi

...does anyone remember?

On every annual visit to Kerala, this game was one of the things I looked forward to. The Pallankuzhi, a traditional board game. All you needed was a wooden board with fourteen pits and some cowrie shells or tamarind seeds or manjadi kuru (also known as the seeds of the red bead tree, the botanical name is Adenanthera pavonia) or beads.

Soon, other avenues of entertainment paved in and the Pallankuzhi found it's place in the attic.

Now, after years I saw this at an antique shop in Kochi and fell in love with it. It also struck me that I had a huge collection of those red seeds sealed tightly in a bottle, kept safely somewhere in my house. I've been hunting for it....without any luck. I used to be madly obsessed with these seeds and wanted to have all of them for myself. Selfish...isn't it?

I'll be visiting Kochi again this October and this Pallankuzhi is going to come home with me. My dad has promised to get the 'lucky red seeds' for me.

I was wondering, how life changes. The little things that we did as kids are forgotten when the worries of the world start dominating our lives. Thanks to this beautiful shop, I was reminded of something that I was passionate about.

Ok...now let's get over it! How do we play the game?
Very simple. To be honest I had forgotten the rules of the game. I found it on this page:
http://www.mapsofindia.com/maps/kerala/people-culture-and-festivals/pallaankuzhi.html

The game:
The houses are in two rows of 7 each. Each row belongs to a player and so is called the player's "side". The central house is called the "Kasi" and is like the players store/ treasure of cowrie shells. The game has many versions depending on the number of cowrie shells each player receives at the beginning.

This number may vary from 144 to 170. The game begins with each player receiving equal number of cowrie shells and with the players distributing them equally in all the houses except the Kasi.

Now as the game progresses each player in turn chooses one of his houses and removes all its cowries and then starts dropping them in all the houses in a clockwise direction. So the house you had initially chosen is left empty leaving the house next to it vulnerable to capture by the opponent.

The attempt is to collect all the seeds of the opponent. Hence, the system of capture of houses. If a player went bankrupt on all his cowries, he was given access to the shells accumulated in his Kasi. And thus the game goes on it one players shells are totally captured. A lot depends on strategic planning and calculation in this game.

I'm so glad I found this piece on information. The next step is to get the pallankuzhi and the manjadi seeds and then have a gala time playing the game.