Rooted: Chennai venture curates kids’ games on Indian culture

CHENNAI: Chennai-based edutainment and board gaming venture, Chittam, recently launched its collection of board and card games for kids. This interactive gaming collection aims to promote Indian scriptures and culture in a way that is fun and educative for kids.

Speaking to DT Next about the inception of Chittam, Charanya Kumar, founder of the venture, says, “I’ve been to many countries and one thing that I noticed is that they are coming up with different ways to incorporate their culture into games for kids to learn.

“I had a different approach in mind and wanted to try it out. After five months of research, learning, planning and designing; we came up with five games- Sarathi, Bommalattam, Bharata Vilas, Suprabatham, and Neivedya.”

She says Sarathi is an interactive activity book that transports children, their parents and grandparents to the world of Lord Krishna. It contains crosswords, riddles, art challenges, stories, and lots more. The book also has attractive illustrations that will keep the children engaged and interested.

Bommalattam is a puppetry kit that will help kids learn about the history of Indian puppetry and narrate stories of several characters of the Mahabharata. “The kit has a mini theatre set up and puppets with strings. While they learn one of the ancient storytelling techniques in our culture, they will also be learning lessons from the Mahabharata as the hand-crafted puppets are that of the Pandavas and Draupadi.

The kit has stories like the Yaksha Prashna, one of the five gems of the Mahabharata, rephrased to make it easy for children to understand.

Bharata Vilas is an interesting twist on the traditional rummy card game. Instead of the usual diamond, spade, club, and heart, the deck has various foods, monuments, weaves, and dance forms of all Indian states. Players will have to make a real set by matching the categories. As part of the gameplay, children and adults will gain a deeper appreciation of the culture of their fellow Indians.

“This game addresses one of Chittam’s other key focus areas- that of Indian cultural diversity and the need to appreciate this diversity while also being aware of the common threads stitching these diverse elements together,” she adds.

Suprabatham is an introspective activity kit that introduces children to 60 successful Indian personalities, Rajinikanth, Manjamma Jogathi, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and lots more, from various fields. Every morning, at home or in classrooms, children pick up a card, read an anecdote from the personality’s life, and reflect on the questions asked. Suprabatham enables parents and teachers to instil a positive morning ritual and create a space for quiet introspection.

Commenting on how important it is for children to learn about gender identities, she says, “We want kids to see transgender individuals as human beings and not in a way that is prejudiced. That’s the reason we added Manjamma Jogathi as a part of Suprabatham. I’m sure this will lead to further dialogue and will broaden the scope of learning.”

Neivedya is an activity kit that introduces toddlers to the various food offerings associated with Gods, the legends, folklore, and rituals associated with them. The kit includes a book of delightfully quirky poems, a colouring book, and jigsaw puzzles.

Talking about what’s next for Chittam, she says, “We will be releasing another game, Mozhi, in the month of March. This game is curated in such a way that children wanting to learn English can learn it through the game and children wanting to learn Tamil can as well. So, we are really looking forward to its release.”

These games are available for purchase on www.chittam.in