Benefits of the Carrom Board
I’ve lived my entire life in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, and so I’m used to long winters, heat waves, tornado season, and pouring rain that unsurprisingly keeps us inside for many months out of the year. And while playing in the pristine snow or the brilliantly-colored fall leaves is a formative part of my childhood, the weather just doesn’t let us outside sometimes. So we turn our energy indoors, working on crafts and playing with dolls during childhood— and now, social media more than anything.
Numerous articles have reported on social media’s negative effects on mental health— and yet, they offer no alternatives beyond “limit usage” or “avoid social media” — something that anyone who’s given into doomscrolling knows all too well is difficult to do. A popular suggestion for dealing with social media habits is board games. But Settlers of Catan just doesn’t give one the same dopamine rush as scrolling through Instagram reels. There’s just too much thinking going on, you know? And setup– goodness, some of those board games have setups longer than the Nile River. Yes, it’s better to mindlessly scroll, even as you feel all intelligent thoughts leaving your head.
An ideal alternative is one that engages the mind and the body, allowing you to experience the high of a satisfying win, laugh with friends, and think ahead, without the monotony (or the eye strain) of doomscrolling on repeat. And this is where carrom comes in.
I was introduced to carrom at a young age, when visiting India. My uncle asked me if I knew how to play carrom. Five-year-old me had no idea what it was, so he taught me how to play, after buying me a Spiderman-themed carrom board. While the board’s long gone, the memories of playing, of learning the game and its variants, have lasted ever since. My dad’s mentioned about how carrom brings him nostalgia and memories
Carrom has an international popularity, as evidenced by the existence of the International Carrom Federation— which hosts championship tournaments in which players from 50 different countries participate. In spite of its international popularity, however, carrom’s rules are standardized and simple— so someone from Saudi Arabia could easily play a game with someone from Singapore without having to spend an hour getting the rules straight.
It’s affordable, and once you buy it, the only thing you’ll need to get after are more friends to play the game, since all the parts come with the board— which is also space-saving, since it’s flat and can be leaned against a wall when not in use. The rules aren’t just simple, they’re also flexible, which allows for players of different skill levels to play together. And while the game is technically meant for two or four players, you can invite more people into the game through a hot potato rotating-style method.
But what exactly is carrom? It’s a game that consists of a smooth wooden board surrounded by walls about three inches high– so that the wooden striker you flick from the starting lines can rebound around the board, allowing for trick shots and surprise wins. The goal of the game is to land all of your wooden pieces in the corner pockets using the striker before your opponent does.
Like any other game, it improves focus, hand-eye coordination, decision making, and provides that burst of mental stimulation to keep you occupied. But there are benefits that social media can’t ever give you— like being able to talk to people in person, anxiety relief, and best of all, teaches you the importance of connecting with people. By the nature of the game, you end up forming conversations with the people you play with, creating memories that overshadow anything else. It’s a game of skill, luck, strategy, physics, and it’s a game about people.
When you go to India, you can see people playing carrom on the street corners or on their front porch, young and old, a cup of tea in one hand as the radio plays the latest Bollywood hits. It’s a sight that always fills me with contentment, no matter how many times I see it. At the end of the day, carrom isn't about the win-loss record, but rather about the connections we make as we play—something that rings true now more than ever in our digital world.
There’s a lot of things that I don’t remember from my early childhood. I don’t remember when I started reading, I don’t remember when I started going to school. But one thing I know I’ll always remember is learning how to play carrom from my uncle, and all of the joy and benefits it’s brought me.