Page 50 - KYTE INDIA E-MAGAZINE

It is a cross and circle board game that originated in ancient India. Pachisi has
been described as the "national game of India". It is played on a board shaped
like a symmetrical cross. A player's pieces move around the board based upon
a throw of six or seven cowrie shells, with the number of shells resting with
aperture upwards indicating the number of spaces to move.

The name of the game is derived from the Hindi word pachis, meaning twenty-
five, the largest score that can be thrown with the cowrie shells. Thus, this
game is also known by the name Twenty-Five.

Pachisi is a game for two, three, or four players. The players are split
into in two teams. One team has yellow and black pieces, the other team has
red and green. The team which moves all its pieces to the finish first, wins the
game.

Pandi Attam (Hopscotch)

Nondi or Pandi Attam is a very funny hopping game played by the girls in many
rural villages of Tamil Nadu. It is known as Tokkudu Billa/Tangidi Billa in Andra
Pradesh and Kunte Bille in Karnataka. It is played by the girls in many villages,
even today. A popular playground game in which players toss a small object
into numbered spaces of a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and
then hop or jump through the spaces to retrieve the object.