Cuttack/Bhubaneswar
Indigenous tribal games have mostly fallen off the grid, but you can still chance upon them sometimes – at least in Odisha.
Deogarh Athletic Association president Dhirendra Nayak stumbled upon one such match in full swing during a visit to Laimura village of Odisha. The Bhuiyan tribal boys playing it explained the rules.
“The players collect and polish seven pieces of earth into rounds of different sizes, called chakri. These are kept one atop the other to form a pyramid,” says Nayak.
A rubber ball and two teams of seven players each complete the ensemble. The chakris are set inside a circle made with white chalk. One team stands seven metres away behind a line. A member of that team throws the ball at the chakri and as soon as he scatters them, his teammates hurry to gather them and set them up again.
They are countered by the opposing team, which tries to prevent them from restacking the discs by hitting them with the ball. If the ball hits a boy, the opposing team wins that game. It carries on this way for several rounds until a high score by one team is achieved and a victor evident.
This game was played the same way in neighbouring Jharkhand too both by tribals as well as non-tribals.
Retd Colonel Rajesh Singh, who grew up in steel city Jamshedpur, recalls fondly how this game used to be played passionately by him and his friends in their childhood some 35-40 years ago.
“We used to call it saat goti and involved the rubber ball and seven somewhat flat stones. In these parts, it was one of the most popular games that were played by both tribals and non-tribals. We devoted much time, much to the chagrin of our parents, to this game. Those were fun-filled, carefree days for us unlike what the present generation is undergoing,” he told The Indian Tribal.
He pointed out that outdoor sports like Saat Goti was one among the many like Gilli Danda, Kanche, Dhappa, besides, of course, Cricket, Badminton and Football.
Come to think of it, unknowingly then, the game of Saat Goti taught us focus and concentration to hit the target, agility, swiftness and quick thinking to avoid retaliatory opponent attack after demolition of target, sense of direction to escape, team spirit and guerillas-like strategising to split and regroup to rebuild/restore target to emerge victorious, he outlined.
