JOIN USEver since technology has taken over children’s entertainment, anything other than graphically-designed games has failed to fascinate them. In an effort to change the trend, Ravi Shankar and his team of artists at Chaya Nisarga in Bengaluru are using new patterns while designing boards of these traditional games. The team says that the new form, where cloth replaces cardboard, attracts young and old alike.
Folk designs like warli, hase chittara and madhubani in striking colour schemes are drawn on these boards. Though they have no relevance to the games, they add to the beauty of the board making them multipurpose. What more, the artists use vegetable colours for the art and the cloth boards can even be washed and ironed.
Narrow hollow spaces are made on either side of the square board to insert thin metal rods so that the cloth can be rolled and slid into a pouch, occupying minimal space and making it easy to carry. They have a small loop on one edge that can be used to hang the games on walls, making for attractive pieces of wall art.
Learning made fun
Ravi Shankar has been creating handmade craft items for more than two decades now. He creates puzzles too and plans to collaborate with schools to introduce traditional games and puzzles as part of their curriculum. He says, “These games motivate children to think out of the box and develop their cognitive skills. At a higher level, these games help to relieve stress.”
Vasantha Kumari, who runs an activity centre for kids, has found these games helpful. She has been teaching traditional and modern board games and has realised that this fun exercise helps them develop cognitive skills and foster analytical and problem solving abilities. She says, “I have seen children, who fear math, gradually develop interest in the subject by playing these games. Once they understand the concepts, they learn to apply them practically through these games.”
This turns out to be a fun, learning exercise for many young ones.
“When they succeed in the games or puzzles, they gain confidence,” Vasantha says. She adds that since games are part of the academic exercise, children don’t feel the pressure and learn better.
The games Ravi offers include snakes and ladders, chowka bara, alguli mane, pagade, hulikaru ata, navakankari (popular as Nine Men’s Morris) and chess. As for the benefits of these games, he said that it is a matter of luck in games that require dice, but games like navakankari, hulikaru and chess require strategy building abilities.
Rules of the games must be followed and the players must think before they make moves, as one wrong move can take the game away from them. Such exercises also help in simple addition, subtraction and even development of life skills such as patience, tolerance, team spirit, strategy building, critical and logical thinking.
Many takers
Mala Dhawan of A Hundred Hands, a non-profit venture where Ravi Shankar is a member, says, “Our vision is to celebrate handmade crafts and a simpler life. Ravi Shankar’s foray into these
hand-painted games is a great idea to make traditional games attractive for all age groups.”
Preeti Joseph, another customer and a resident of Bengaluru says she bought two sets from board games from him to promote traditional games. “They are environment-friendly, washable and portable. Playing on them is a nice way to spend time with children and keeps them
occupied. While the younger generation learns something new, we get to relive the good old days,” she says.
Maya B