■ As it requires planning, it helps in understanding how to develop strategies. ■ This game can help in developing counting skills. ■ If you score four or eight twice and you are afraid that you might lose all with the third throw, move the pawn to the fourth or eight square before throwing the shells. ■ The trick to win this game is to cut opponents’ pawn as many times as possible so that you move ahead of them. The player with pawn A gets an extra chance to throw the seeds/roll the dice. If player A’s pawn lands in the square which has player B’s pawn, then pawn A ‘hits’ pawn B and pawn B returns to the starting point and has to start all over again. In a 5X5 board, the starting point of every player that are marked with X becomes a safe square. Two players can’t have their pawns in the same square, except when they are marked ‘safe’ with an X. You move the pawn according to your score, anti-clockwise in the first circle and clock-wise in the inner circles. The winner is the one whose all four pawns reach the centre square first. The game can be played either by two, three or four people. Each player, sitting on one side of the board, picks four pieces of anything - glass bangles of different colours, unsmoothened tamarind seeds or chickpeas. The square board is divided into 25 squares (5X5) or 49 squares (7X7). But if the player throws four or eight thrice, he/she loses all the points.If this scoring system is too complicated, you can also use dice. If a player scores four (chakka) or eight (yentu), he/she gets another chance to roll the shells again. There is a jackpot combination - when all the tamarind seeds fall face down, which adds up to eight and not zero.

So with the four seeds, a player can score 1, 2, 3 or 4. If they fall face up, the player scores one, and if they fall face down, the score is zero. How they fall decides the movement of a player’s pieces.

The game is played with four or six cowries or tamarind seeds, which are smoothened on one side. I have even played a game with my great-grandmother, who would sit with her assortment of paans. But for me, the appeal was the game’s ability to bring people together, irrespective of age or social status. The game was known as a royal pastime it improves hand-to-eye coordination, counting skills, and also introduces children to ‘war tactics and strategy’.

Ashta chamma game rules