Monopoly is an enduring classic that has stood the daunting test of time. Many variants and special editions later, the game still holds strong. Always visible on retail games shelves, marking a seemingly mandatory presence on the indent list. But sadly, played less frequently than a generation or two ago. This is after all, an instant

Kreeda has taken it upon themselves to package traditional Indian games and introduce them with an earthy ethnic chic. Play counters become conch shells. Game boards are canvas strips with bright screen-printed colours. Packaging is fashionably eco-friendly cardboard. Instruction sheets are determinedly uninteresting single line spaced back-to-back printed A4 sheets, without the slightest effort invested in laying out content to drawin a reader!

I haven’t seen the movie yet, but reviews assure me she’s radiant even when eating a pizza. Being impressionable and easily swayed, she’s influenced the headline of my piece on Pic Charades from Leo Mattel. I dust away the cobwebs from a long ignored box, lying right on top of an exposed and neglected shelf. The sand timer is missing, as are pencils, drawing pad and the rules leaflet. No matter. One look at the deck of cards, and three die, and you instinctively know what to do!

It was a silly pre-conceived notion that aggressively peddled games are best avoided, that was responsible for me avoiding Connect4 for this long. It’s everywhere! In every book and games store. Even in the most unlikely general stores that stock a few board games. Most recently, I even saw a full-blown garden version of the game standingsome four feet tall, surrounded by a gaggle of waist-high noisy little monsters.

In a happy coincidence, just a week after I acquired my very own edition of ‘Absolute Balderdash’, I read the word ‘balderdash’ in a sentence in a Georgette Heyer novel I was re-reading for the nth time! Drummond Park have taken the game I fell completely in love with some 20 or more years ago and re-invented it for this special 20th anniversary edition. Sadly, what was pure unadulterated word play has degenerated into some sort of game show format, with ‘events’,‘words’,‘laws’,‘initials’

The Ashridge Forest at the periphery of Berkhamsted is a favourite picnic destination. A gnarled yet strangely leafy old tree stands alone, smack in the middle of an enormous open green, surrounded by dense woods. It was a sunny day in this part of the UK, and unlike the locals basking in the sun, we headed straight for the shade of the tree. A quick picnic lunch, and an introduction to a new game.

With a background in psychology, and a current pre-occupation with price-modeling in Germany, Juliane was in town recently. She learnt English just a few years ago and I was grateful for her surprisingly fluency. It’s not very often that I meet someone genuinely excited by board games. She insisted on playing through each game, not

I distinctly remember seeing a rather expensive imported version of the same game around six months ago. There were just a couple of pieces on the store shelf. I dithered. The game seemed interesting, but the approximately Rs 1,000 sticker price gave me pause. And then just a couple of weeks ago, I came across SHOUTIT from Toysbox. Retailing at just Rs 125. It was the same game I had hesitated over, at a tenth of the price, and the aesthetics did not make me shudder!

Memory Skills’ from Zephyr Toymakers (Mumbai) was a pleasant surprise. The packaging wasn’t too bad. The price was very reasonable (under Rs 200). And the product design and finish was impressive, notwithstanding my spectacularly low expectation levels.

Carefully packed into three suitcases, safely tucked away into the loft, are three precious racing car sets. I acquired these while in school, into my first year at work, and when Neha was about eight years old. The first of the sets was exquisite by night. Head lights and tail lamps blazed as the cars raced around the track. Fluorescent