In Old Delhi’s labyrinthine streets of Sadar Bazar, where spices and silver jewellery are sold in wholesale markets, noise is a default setting. The best way to get there is by travelling on the Delhi Metro, and then in a (back-breaking) autorickshaw ride over potholes. The “multitudes” that Walt Whitman speaks about can also be used to describe Delhi’s Mughal quarter: traffic and cows dodge each other, people grab a bite on the roadside, thick electricity cables hang low, and there are loud negotiations for money and space.
Off Idgah Road, where it is best to walk because the lane narrows to single-scooter width, a backstreet leads to a ramshackle building. Within its 16×16-square-foot hall, there is an unexpected quiet. Behind the closed doors of the Mohammed Naeem Ansari Hero Boys Carrom Club-cum-Naeem Coaching Academy, three dozen men pore over carrom boards illuminated by bulbs hanging over them. Wooden coins — in ivory and black — that dart across the boards make the only sound as players focus on their next move.
There are about 30 carrom clubs in the city, registered with the Delhi Carrom Association, mostly across the Walled City near the Jama Masjid, Ballimaran, Chawri Bazaar, Lal Kuan, and Paharganj; besides a few in Wazirabad in west Delhi and Seelampur in east Delhi. Most of them, though not the Ansari boys’ club, are 40-50 years old, and operate out of crammed low-ceiling rooms. To play competitively, clubs must be registered.
“Over the last three years, the number of clubs has doubled and the membership multiplied manifold,” says Mohd. Naeem Ansari, who runs three carrom clubs in Sadar Bazar. “Until the early 1990s, there were about 60 clubs in the city; by the 2000s, hardly a dozen were left,” he says. The nature of entertainment had changed, with multiplexes and mall-crawl culture thriving. The low patronage of the informally played game copied itself out in towns and cities across India until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
With historical roots in India, carrom is today played in living rooms, public spaces, clubs, cafes, game halls of school and colleges, and recreation rooms of hotels and offices across 75 countries. “It is an enthralling game with no age bar and provides both entertainment and quality time with family and friends. There is an element of competition too,” says Rashmi Kumari, three-time world champion and winner of 11 national titles. Kumari, who works with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, a public sector company, says people do not realise that there are those who play it at a highly competitive level.
As per export data from the Commerce and Industry Ministry, ₹39 crore worth of Indian carrom boards were exported between April 2022 and January 2024. There was a 6% growth between just February and August 2024.
Crafting carrom boards
Ansari’s observation about the revival of interest in carrom is reflected 80 km away in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, where kaarigars (craftspeople) make carrom boards. “Our boards are for everyone who plays carrom for fun and bonding,” says Aman Grover, who runs his grandfather’s 55-year-old Swati Sports in Bansipura, which is dotted with shops selling sports equipment.
In 2022, Grover says, his annual turnover of ₹4 crore was three times more than the previous year’s. Then, making carrom boards was seasonal, doing good business six months a year and peaking during the summer, vacations, and festivals like Ramzan. “Now, the spike in demand keeps us busy even during the challenging monsoon and winter months,” he says.
Meerut was one of the places where families that fled Sialkot during the Partition settled. Now, people who manufacture carrom boards — a skill they brought back from Sialkot — live in Surajkund Colony, Sports Colony, and Gandhi Nagar. Nearly 78 years ago, they had set up small enterprises in their backyards, manufacturing all kinds of sports goods.
“Initially, there were hundreds of us here; now only 50 families are left that make carrom boards,” says Madan Bhatia, whose family business was set up by his grandfather in Sialkot in 1926. His workshop in Surajkund Colony buzzes with the skills of daily wage workers who make 250-300 carrom boards a day.
A daily wage worker making carrom boards at a factory in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.
| Photo Credit:
Zeeshan Akhtar
The corridor to Bhatia’s office is stacked, Jenga-like, with towers of 16×16-inch plyboards that come from Kolkata, and kikar (babul wood) frames from Rajasthan. From here, the sky is just a ribbon. In the mini factory, carrom boards are being assembled manually. Four pieces of kikar wood are cut to make a square frame, then glued, and clasped with iron fasteners.
“Earlier, we used nails, but now use corrugated fasteners as they join the corners better,” says Deepak Kumar, who has been working in the factory for 15 years. The frame is then layered with marammat (a mixture of chalk powder and a wood adhesive) and smoothened before it is painted black, varnished, and left to dry.
In the next section, the ply, already coated with a sealer and dried to make it waterproof, is smoothened with sandpaper and fitted into the frame. Roshan Singh focuses on the rotating cutter to drill holes for the four corner pockets in less than a minute. He has done this for 20 years.
Bhatia says until a decade ago, skilled artisans held an important position in the carrom-making team as the black-and-red marking on the playing surface was hand-painted on each board. “It was time-consuming. Stencilling has made the process quicker,” he explains.
The next step is to paste the back support or the chaakdi, which is sourced from the wood market in Hapur, Uttar Pradesh, on to each prepared board. Bharat Kumar then attaches the crochet pockets made by women at home in Uttar Pradesh’s Tejgarhi, 4 km away.
His sister-in-law, Rajeshwari, earns ₹5 for each pocket she crochets. Depending on her domestic chores, she does 20 dozen or so in a week. Now, he fears her small earnings may go away because factory owners have started importing nylon pocket nets from China for ₹3 a dozen. “Handmade crochet pockets are better and it is easy to hammer bulletin board pins on them around the four holes,” he says.
Board intelligence
Carrom board-making is a lengthy process; at each stage of its making it has to be sun-dried well so that the frame and the board do not warp, bloat, or bubble over time. It takes at least five persons to make one carrom board, and inside Meerut’s small factories, daily wage workers put in shifts of eight hours each. They are paid between ₹32 and ₹100 per piece depending on the type of work they do and the size of the board.
“It takes two months for a carrom board to get to the market for sale,” says Bhatia, supervising the day’s consignment of 100 boards, each packaged with carrom coins procured from Rajkot and Vadodara in Gujarat, and carrom powder that is produced locally. His boards will be delivered to Reliance stores in a neighbouring district.
“The most-bought size for playing at home is 16×16 inches,” says Deepak Aggarwal, who owns a shop in the market. Selling at ₹180 each five years ago, they now cost ₹250 given the rising cost of raw materials. Boards smaller than this usually have a two-year life. Depending on the order, carrom manufacturers in Meerut make the boards in sizes from 16×16 inches to 42×42 inches.
“After COVID, there has been year-round demand. We would sell 300 to 350 pieces a month in the hectic six-month period, which would drop to 125 pieces a month for the rest of the year,” says Abhishek Jalan, Aggarwal’s business partner.
“The abundance of orders is good money, but it also means working long hours in difficult weather conditions. The wood has to be always well protected from water and dampness,” says Manohar Lal, a skilled solo manufacturer, who makes his own boards, roughly two dozen a week, and sells them only in the local market.
Taking it abroad
In 1947, thousands of skilled craftsmen had migrated across the border and established sports goods manufacturing units predominantly in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Meerut, Moradabad, and Mumbai. While Punjab and Maharashtra grew as the hub for carrom boards used in competitions the world over, Meerut’s small manufacturers remained inundated with opportunities for handmade, indoor games.
Arjun Kohli, 28, is the CEO of Stag, which was founded by his great-grandfather Arjun Das Kohli in 1922 in Sialkot to make sports equipment for schools. Though the company today is a trusted brand in table tennis, the demand for carrom boards in domestic markets and overseas, including the U.S., the U.K., and Europe, where the Indian diaspora lives in large numbers, has made Arjun stick with it.
In 1947, thousands of skilled craftsmen who made carrom boards had migrated from Pakistan’s Sialkot across the border and established sports goods manufacturing units predominantly in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Meerut, Moradabad, and Mumbai.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
He is a regular supplier of high-quality, medium-density fibreboard carrom boards to Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE; and within India to Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, and the northeastern States. On an average, 3,000 boards move out of his factory once every three weeks, he says. Arjun makes them on white boards, laminated particle boards, and high-density plywood that cost between ₹2,500 and ₹12,000. “The price depends on the thickness of the plain surface, thickness and width of the border, the finishing touches, and the quality of screen printing and polishing,” he says.
With carrom becoming a part of many Indian celebrations in recent years, Arjun began innovating. Last Deepavali, he launched a convertible carrom board, a folding model that also turns into a mini table tennis set and comes on wheels for easy mobility. For Ramzan, he made boards with extra pockets on the frames to hold teacups, and adjustable stands for playing comfort and posture. This Deepavali, he created a black board with neon coins for Australian and U.S. markets.
Grover caters to weekly orders of 50 pieces of 32×32-inch boards, and 80 pieces of 16×16-inch boards from Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Afghanistan, and Iran. Bhatia sends 100 pieces a month to Nepal and also receives bulk orders from Yemen, Malaysia, and Qatar.
Vivek Narayan, former secretary general of the All India Carrom Federation, says despite India being among the top playing carrom nations in the world, and a quality exporter of carrom boards, the game has not been elevated the way chess has. However, he says because players can apply for government jobs and university scholarships using carrom wins under the sports quota, it holds value. “Multiple carrom competitions at district and State levels, the national league tournaments, and world championships have catapulted carrom to a recognised tabletop sport. The live-streaming of carrom tournaments on YouTube is slowly making a difference,” he adds.
Going clubbing
Back inside Delhi’s carrom clubs, the games typically begin at 7 p.m. and go on until the crack of dawn. Mohsin Qureshi, 62, who plays competitive veteran tournaments, says the clubs are helping produce better players. “A decade ago, the clubs collectively produced barely two teams to play in the annual State tournament. Today, Delhi boasts 128 players at the inter-State level,” he says.
Faiz Qureshi, 15, was ranked third in the National Junior Championship held in February this year in Madurai, Tamil Nadu. The Class 11 student of N.P. Boys Senior Secondary School, Gole Market, has been practising at Ansari’s coaching academy with one of the seniormost coaches, Haji Swalin, who started playing carrom in 1948.
A carrom game in full swing at one of the clubs in Old Delhi.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
“I used to occasionally play carrom at home with my father, but really got into it during COVID. It helped me wean myself off mobile phone games,” says Faiz. Now, he says, many of his schoolmates enjoy a game of carrom more than making and watching reels.
Khubeb Qureishi, 13, and Siddarth Ujjainwal, 15, have joined Ansari’s academy with five other children to learn and upskill their game. For a monthly fee of ₹500, Ansari gives them a three-hour class daily from 4 p.m. He also serves them some light refreshments as the children come straight from school.
“Coaching by veteran players and multiple district-level tournaments round the year give them enough opportunities to prove their mettle in the game,” says Ansari.
There are also carron players who walk in after midnight just for a round. Ansari charges them ₹20 per game. “On an average, newcomers take 40 minutes to an hour to finish a rally; I keep the club open until 4 a.m. daily,” he says.
Published – December 27, 2024 12:30 am IST
