28 INTERESTING GAMES TO PLAY AT HOME-GAME-1

 

WRITE A PAGE A DAY is a month long campaign initiated by Blog chatter and in it one should write a page a day and that should count to 10k words on February 28^th. Everyday word count need to be updated in the Twitter account with #Write A page A Day.

In this campaign I’m planning to write about 28 INTERESTING GAMES TO PLAY AT HOME. On a daily basis I will be presenting a blogpost on an interesting game that can be easily played at home.

GAME- 1

On the Day one of the campaign #WriteAPageADay, Dhayakattai an ancient game which is highly popular and widely played in the house holds of Tamil Nadu will be presented in detail.

At first basic requirements of the game:

Number of persons: Minimum 2 and Maximum 4

Preferred age group: Above the age of 10

Duration of the play: Minimum half an hour, if played by two.

Best time to play: Afternoon or nights (Usually played after lunch or dinner).

Preferred surface: on the floor or any flat/even surface (ups and down not allowed)

Things required to play: Dhayakattai, (cuboid dice made of brass) chalk piece, six different stake coins with six in each. Usually chozhi (shells), dried tamarind seeds, dried betel nuts, shirt buttons, dried sapota seeds, tiny pebbles are used as stake coins. Six pieces are needed per person. If four persons are playing, then 24 totals pieces are required.

(Note: cash and coins, dried turmeric sticks are not allowed to be used as stake coins and as norm the game is not played in the evenings.)

How to play: First of all if it’s is a cement flooring with the help of the chalk piece the board is laid on the floor or in other forms of flooring the lines with chalk piece will not be clearly visible, so they draw the board in the white paper and stick it to a card board or directly draw the board and play with it.

                                            

 

  A toss is laid using the dayakattai and then the one who wins the toss start the game.

The dice have dots of 0,1,2,and 3. One can down their coins only when he gets 1 in the dayakatti and 1 is termed as DAAYAM. For every coin to down one has get dayaam individually. One can roll the dayakattai one time and pass it to the other player unless he gets 1,5, 6, 12, he is not allowed to roll again and again.

The dayakattai with 1 dot and the other one blank or 0 or no dots = 1 point

The dayakattai with 3 dots in both the kattai =6 points

The dayakattai is 0 or blank or with no dots in both the kattai = 12 points

The 5 points can be reached in the dayakatti with the sum of dots in both the kattai.

All the players either 2 or four, should roll the dayakattai one by one. As per the dots in the dayakattai the coins should move, initially it should move towards the player and then in clockwise direction. Once all the coins are down, he can move any piece for the dots he rolled. During his move, he can “cut” other piece which is already in that place. It will be an exemption if the coin is the “X” place.

The same pattern should be followed by everyone in the play. After completing one full round of the board, a coin can be moved up in the outer edge of the player‘s zone. Only exact dots can move the coins. The one who successfully completes a round of the board and reaches the outer edge and gains the exact dot is declared winner. All the six coins should undergo the same process to complete the game.

Reference to this Game : The first reference to this game was made in the Sanskrit Literature in the Epic Maha Bharata and stated that this game is initially played by Nala and Pushkara. Later the game became famous and synonymous with Shakuni – the maternal uncle of Kauravas dealt in the Same Epic.

 

(This blog post is a part of Blogchatter’s #WRITE A PAGE A DAY)

(Today’s word count 687 #Write A Page A Day)