How a 5,000-year-old Indian game is making a comeback in Tamil Nadu | I Witness

At a time when cricket and football dominate public grounds, groups of youngsters from Tamil Nadu’s 20 districts are reviving ‘atya patya’ (game of dodge), a Chola-era traditional rural game. Once played during harvest festivals, the game is also mentioned in ‘Natrinai’, a classical Tamil poetic work in Sangam literature. Played in teams of 15 (nine on court and six substitutes) and 10 referees, the game is known by other names such as killi thattu (the referee is called killi, the other players as taggers) and uppu kodu (salt lines). “It was traditionally played with salt to mark the courts, especially by women in salt fields, which is why the name uppu kodu stuck,” says David James R, President of the Chengalpet district atya patya federation. Actor and former chief minister J Jayalalithaa once danced on an atya patya court for the song ‘Naan than di kaathi’ from the 1968 Tamil film ‘Pudhiya Bhoomi’, which featured former chief minister and matinee idol M G Ramachandran. “That 20-second sequence is perhaps the only mainstream cinematic depiction of the game,” he says, adding that they chose such scenes to strike a chord with the rural audience.