Protect Baagchaal

Protecting herds of goat from marauding tigers. How would a goat-herder do that? Protecting those feeble animals from big predator is a tad too difficult for our farmers. Many a time, these farmers have to throw their own lives in line to protect goats and other animals as well as farmed birds from the leopard. Dealing with the tiger is tougher.    

Shielding goats from the tiger is no cakewalk in a game called Baagchaal, either. In good old days, it was not uncommon to see gritty porters, among others, take time off and wrack their brains in a game or two of Baagchaal at public places of Kathmandu. 

At the chowks and crowded allies, one could find people playing this cerebral game by drawing an intricate board on the ground pulsating with the footfall of milling crowds. Those days are gone, it appears.  In their place have come new groups whose favourite pastime is the Ludo, the Chess or some other modern games.  

Ask any of those random players if they have heard about Baagchaal. The most likely answer would be a resounding no. Rarest of the rare among the players would say that they used to play Baagchaal. What made them switch to new games? Of course, technology played a part. Smartphones and those apps mean they don’t have to draw the Baagchaal board, order one, buy or carve out one on the floor. What’s more, with these apps available for free, you don’t even need to have a player other than you to play all those modern games. 

A random strolling around Mahabouddha a few days ago brought to light another fact that had Baagchaal on the decline. A casual conversation with a couple of people unearthed, literally, two Baagchaal players of the yore. They were in their early and mid-30s. 

One of them (in the mid-30s) reminisced that he used to play the game with friends and elders at his village in Bandipur of Tanahun, in his teens. He used to wrack his brains in the game while grazing his goats and cows on public holidays. After school, he moved to Kathmandu 20 years ago and completed his +2 in management.

Since Baagchaal would not give him a living, he looked for alternatives. These days, he works as a mason and a building contractor. Another avid player of the yore is from Mahabharat Rural Municipality in Kavre district. In his home village, people still play the game and he learnt it from elders.

This player also came to Kathmandu quite early, after his parents died when their house caught fire one fateful day. With his dreams burnt with the house, this young kid started working as a porter. It was during that time that he met an elder player from Nepalthok of Kavre. 

However, the game did not last long as the elder one returned to his home village in response to repeated prodding from his sons. With the fellow player gone, the youth, who has been working as a porter in Kathmandu, has quit the game altogether. These days, he too plays the Ludo on his mobile phone whenever there is no work. 

Worryingly, he admits, it is hard to find enough work to feed the family of five – he himself, his wife and three small children -- in a post-COVID scenario. The traditional and fascinating Nepali game of Baagchaal is dying for want of players. Is there hope for the game? Will a mobile phone-based app save this game from extinction? Please give it a thought, app developers.