16th century on the cards

A painstaking effort is on to revive an ancient card game that is a wealth of history and myths

Often people question the need for preserving vanishing craft, arguing that as cultures evolve, traditional practices get inevitably replaced by newer ones. However, the revival of the historical game of cards, Ganjifa, shows how intricately linked craft, market, culture and community are, and underscores the necessity of breathing new life into India's fading craft legacies.

Ganjifa is the precursor of modern playing cards that originated in the 16th century. Once the beloved of King Akbar, over time the classic (and political) Mughal Ganjifa, in which the strong and weak suits of cards were represented by allies and enemy kings, developed several Hindu versions - Dashavatar (based on Vishnu's 10 incarnations), Navagraha (based on the nine planets) and others. However, the advent of cheaper western playing cards sounded the death knell for these relatively more expensive, hand-painted cards.

"Six years ago, when I decided to try to revive the craft of Ganjifa painting, there were barely a handful of people left in India who played the game - and a dying breed of artists who painted them," says Pooja Ratnakar, co-founder of Kadam India, a small voluntary outfit that works to create sustainable, craft-based livelihoods in several Indian states, including West Bengal and Odisha. Ratnakar's tryst with Ganjifa began accidentally. "In 2006, in Raghurajpur village in Odisha, late one moonless night, I saw some ghostly old men draped in white shawls sitting in a circle. They were the last few players of Dashavatar Ganjifa in the village," she recounts. Soon she started playing Ganjifa with them. "As I played, I realised the wealth of history and myth that the game had. Although the old men gambled with the cards, they believed that as they were chanting the names of Vishnu, playing Ganjifa cleansed them of all sins," she says. It prompted her to research the history of the game.

"The evolution of Ganjifa reflects the changing cultural and political mores of large parts of the Indian sub-continent from the 16th century into the late 18th century," Ratnakar says. "The iconography of Ganjifa has obvious associations with symbols of governance and court politics of that time, something I found fascinating to discover." Moreover, the sheer artistry and craftsmanship required to make these cards amazed her. "When I held a Ganjifa card in my hand, I couldn't believe that it had been made from old cotton saris, that its very canvas took at least seven days to prepare and that it had been made in accordance with centuries-old rituals."

However, it wasn't until four years later that she decided to do something to revive the ancient game. "To my sadness, when I returned to Raghurajpur, only one player from the original group remained. Only one Ganjifa artist, Banamalli Mahapatra, was left, and he too was frail and old," she recounts. "If I didn't act, the lore of Ganjifa would be lost forever."

Through Kadam, Ratnakar developed a Ganjifa kit with Mahapatra. "It took the old artist almost a month to make the first kit, but the end result was exquisite. To market it, I approached museums across the world and discovered many were interested," she says. "Some, like London's Victoria & Albert Museum, already had historically significant Ganjifa sets on display. Eventually, orders began trickling in," she says. This has meant convincing modern buyers to pick up a set of hand-painted, round cards priced between Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000, depending on their intricacy. And while the game's rules are interesting, they are also insanely complicated (the Dashavatar Ganjifa set she sells has 10 suits that become weaker or stronger depending on the time of the day and the weather). Ratnakar says she believes that if we engage the world with stories about our handicrafts, developing a market for them wouldn't be difficult.

"I was so fascinated by the story of Ganjifa that I just couldn't sit back and watch it fade away," says Sesh Seshadri, head of Overleaf, an educational consultancy that provides learning resources to schools. Last year, Overleaf guaranteed work for Mahapatra for 12 months and undertook to purchase every Ganjifa set he made during this period. "The prospect of regular orders has enabled Mahapatraji to train younger artists, ensuring that at least in Raghurajpur, the tradition of Ganjifa stays alive a little while longer," says Ratnakar. "More such market linkages will go a long way in reviving our handicraft." Ratnakar plans to work with other traditional Ganjifa centres in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

In many ways, for Ratnakar, Ganjifa has become a metaphor for India's handicraft sector. "Reviving a dying craft breathes new energy into the lives of all its stakeholders as well as the age-old tradition it embodies," says she. "In its own small way, Ganjifa has given us hope that we can resurrect the other dying arts and crafts in the country."

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