Bhubaneswar
Very much alive and kicking during its heydays in the past, Kati has mostly yielded place to games like football, hockey and volleyball that most young tribals now prefer to opt for. Besides, migration of young lots to cities and towns for bread and butter has punctured much of its past tempo and temper. Plummeting players’ passion for the game too has eroded much of the zest for it. Still, it has not sunk in the sands of time. Some intrepid promoters and die-hard players are still keeping its endgame at bay.
The game is named after Kati that is made out of the hard core of a babool or a tamarind tree. It is a hard and heavy piece of wood. It resembles the shape of a half-moon that two teams hit and play against each other. Its playfield is rectangular where a central line is drawn parallel to the sides of the rectangle. A wooden log, called bergha, is placed at the mid-point of the central line. Two parallel lines are drawn on the ground–each on the opposite side of the central one. The distance between each line and the central line varies between 2’ and 2’.5”.
A number of Katis are placed on one side line. Gripping the upper part of a bamboo stick, a player has to kick the lower part of the stick in such a way that it hits a Kati. If the hit lobs the Kati over the line on the other side of the central line, it becomes the first step towards victory. The player tries to hit other Katis one after another to score the final victory. Now a new component is added to the game. Here the player who has successfully hit all Katis, will have to hit the Katis from the place where they fall in a way that they strike the bergha, to cap an ultimate victory.
The game, which is mostly played during the period between January and April and on special occasions like ‘Raja Parva’, once influenced a facet of the tribal social and religious life. “The victory or defeat of a team in this game sometimes determines the fate of a marriage between a prospective bride of a village and a bridegroom of another village,” said Jashwant Murmi, a resident of village Angarapada.
“Occasionally a ‘puja’, subscribing to tribal rites and rituals, was organized for the victory of a team,” he added.
The player should have to practice the skill of holding and kicking his bamboo stick that hits hard the ‘Kati’ at its right place so that it can swerve out of its area.
Rangnath Hansda, a resident of Pudupani village, who once regularly played the game, echoed a similar view. “A player should have a keen eyesight to hit ‘Kati’ with his bamboo stick so that the disc can swerve away at one go. For this feat, he should enhance the strength of his leg that kicks the Kati. Similarly, his grip must hold the bamboo stick tightly and tactfully so his shot does not misfire. For this, regular practice is needed that is rarely resorted to now-a-days,” Rangnath said.
“We want not only to give a leg-up to tribal theatre, films and traditional music, but also to revive tribal traditional games like Kati, but we need funds to take up this huge responsibility. However, people in the higher echelons of the government are too callous to listen to our pleas,” alleged Deepak Beshra, the founder-chairman of Baripada-based Santali Art and Film Foundation.
When Kati seems inching towards the oblivion, the State government allegedly let it slide, while pitching exclusively for games like kabbadi, hockey, football, archery, cricket volleyball and several other games. Similarly, most sports clubs in Mayurbhanj district lay least importance on it.
When contracted, Abani Mojanty, the District Sports Officer of Mayurbhanj, admitted that Kati and other tribal traditional games were yet to be prioritized. He, however said, “We will soon take steps to enlist tribal traditional games like kati in our district, and then chalk out a detailed plan to promote them.”
Despite the dismal scenario, Kati is still played in several remote tribal areas of the district, according to Thakurdas Hansda, the director of the state planning department. “The Notified Area Council of Rairangpur (Now it is municipality), a sub-divisional headquarter of Mayurbhanj, it organized a Kati-tournament in 2012,” said Thakurdas, a Santal tribal. “Now I and some interested persons organize Kati-tournament on January 23 every year in Baripada, the district headquarter of Mayurbhanj,” he added.
While government and sports clubs have not yet evinced any interest to rejuvenate the game, Jamshedpur-based Tribal Cultural Society (TCS) of Tata Steel organizes Kati-tournament for 36 villages each in Odisha and Jharkhand. A team of TCS organizes the two-day tournament where nearly 35 teams—each having 15 players—take part, according to TCS secretary Jiren Topno.
“The champion is awarded with traditional musical instruments—two mandars and one nagara—along with a cash prize of Rs. 10,000. Similarly, the first runners-up and the second get Rs. 8,000 and Rs. 5,000 respectively along the same number of musical instruments,” said Topno.
Earlier, teams used Katis of different sizes. But TCS has given it a definite size, angles and refurbished it to lend it a systematic shape. Now Kati has emerged as a piece of a definite size, the angle of which between its equal sides is almost 150 degrees. Its base is 12 inches long, while the thickness of its base is 1.5 inches that gradually increases to 4 inches at the apex.
The weight of a Kati in the past used to vary between two kilograms to 2.5 kilograms. But now, it weighs four to five kilograms as per the prescription of TCS.
Earlier, a team used to accommodate as many players as possible into it in. As a result, when a match was flagged off, it took days together to reach its conclusion. But now the number of players in a team is restricted to 15. The purpose of downsizing a team is to wrap up a match in about 30 to 45 minutes that makes the game more exciting.
Earlier, Santals used to play Kati in Mayurbhanj, but now players of Bhumija tribe take part in it, according to Topno. “We also now rope in players from Keonjhar (the adjoining district of Mayurbhanj) to take part in the tournament,” he said.
