Carrom in Srinagar Homes: House Rules Versus the Rulebook

Almost every family I know in Srinagar owns a carrom board, and almost none of them play by the same rules. At my uncle's house in Rajbagh, if your striker drops into a pocket you lose a coin and your turn, and the queen can be covered whenever you like. Two streets away, at a friend's place, pocketing the striker costs nothing beyond the turn, and the queen must be covered on the very next shot or it goes back to the centre. Both households are certain theirs is the real game.

The arguments that follow are part of the fun, up to a point. When cousins visit from Delhi or Dubai, or a guest sits down who learned the game in Mumbai, ten minutes can disappear in a debate about thumbing. So I went looking for what the official rules actually say, and which of our house habits survive contact with them.

The board and pieces, briefly

A standard board has a square playing surface of about 74 centimetres, roughly 29 inches, framed by a raised wooden border with a pocket in each corner. There are nine white coins, nine black coins and one red coin called the queen. You flick a heavier, larger disc called the striker from your own baseline to knock coins into the pockets. Each player owns one colour, and the aim is to pocket all of yours before your opponent does.

The International Carrom Federation publishes rules used for tournaments in India, Sri Lanka and elsewhere, and the Indian national body follows them closely. They set exact limits for the striker and coins, the board's size and surface, and the order of play. Most home boards sold in Srinagar markets are close enough to that size, though the cheaper ones tend to have thinner plywood that sags a little in the middle after a few winters near a bukhari.

Where house rules and the rulebook part ways

Three disputes come up at almost every Kashmiri carrom night I have attended. Here is where each one lands.

Covering the queen. In the official game, after you pocket the queen you must pocket one of your own coins on the same shot or the following one. That is called covering. If you fail, the queen returns to the centre of the board. Many homes in the valley let you cover any time before the game ends, which turns the queen into a free prize. The official rule is stricter and, I think, more interesting, because sinking the queen early becomes a real gamble.

Pocketing the striker. Officially this is a foul. You lose your turn and one of your already pocketed coins goes back onto the board, placed by your opponent near the centre. Most families I know keep some version of this, though plenty of children's games let it slide.

Thumbing. Here the house rule is usually stricter than the rulebook. Many Kashmiri households, my uncle's included, treat a thumb flick as cheating, or at best as something only allowed to beginners. The federation's rules permit thumb shots. When I mentioned this at a family gathering last winter, my uncle simply refused to believe it, and I am not certain I convinced him.

Points, and why most homes skip them

Tournament carrom is not a single race. A match is played over several boards, and the winner of each board scores one point for every opponent's coin still left on the table, plus a bonus for the queen if they covered it. Matches run to a set total, commonly 25 points or a fixed number of boards. The queen's bonus stops counting once a player is close to the target, so nobody can win a match on the queen alone.

At home, almost nobody keeps score this way. We play one board, the winner gets bragging rights, and someone resets the coins in the middle. That is a shame, honestly, because the points system rewards a different kind of play. Under points, clearing your own coins quickly matters less than leaving your opponent stranded with many. Players who learn it start blocking pockets with their own coins and leaving awkward clusters behind, which is far more tactical than simply potting whatever is nearest.

Under points, the board you lose by one coin barely hurts you. The board you lose by eight can end the match.

The powder question

Every household has an opinion on powder too. Carrom needs a slick surface, and the traditional choice is boric acid powder, which you will find in small tins at general stores around Lal Chowk and in most neighbourhood shops. It works well, but boric acid is not something you want small children licking off their fingers, and it gets on everything. Some families switch to fine talc or cornflour. Talc is close to boric powder in feel. Cornflour is gentler but clumps in damp weather, which in a Kashmiri spring means most days.

Whatever you use, less is better. A pinch spread thinly with the flat of your hand is enough. Thick powder slows the coins rather than speeding them up, and it collects in the pockets.

Agreeing the rules before the first strike

The best thing a host can do is settle the disputed rules out loud before anyone touches the striker. I now do it in under a minute with three questions: when must the queen be covered, what happens if the striker is pocketed, and are thumb shots allowed. Whatever the table decides, we follow it for the whole evening. The arguments do not vanish, but they move to the end of the night, where they belong, over a second cup of kahwa.

If you are visiting Kashmir in the cold months, a carrom invitation is one of the warmest ways to spend an evening with a local family, alongside the card games described in our piece on winter evenings with kangri, kahwa and cards. For the practical side of a cold-season trip, our guide to Kashmir in winter covers what to expect outdoors. And if you want to bring a board home, the bazaars in our Srinagar shopping guide are where I would start, checking that the surface lies flat when you set it down on the counter.

Try one thing this week, wherever you are: play a single match with official queen covering and points scoring, three boards or first to 25. It takes about an hour, and in my family it ended at least one long-running argument and started a new one about strategy.