SPORT OF INDIA

• Lagori is a team sport played in India. It is played with fervor and a lot of excitement by the youth. It is a simple game that gives maximum excitement. It’s almost akin to avoiding bullets in a firing range, where one twists and turns to avoid the hit.

• This game is generally played in a huge ground, that has the capacity to take a lot running and also noise. Lagori is a noisy sport, in the sense that the players make a lot of noise by calling out or shouting-out instructions to their teammates. It’s noisier than a group of clucking hens in a cage!

• Called saat-pathar (seven stones), pittu and several other names, Lagori is the most complex popular children’s game in India, and is rather like Dodgeball, but more aggressive. A pile of 7 stones is arranged in the center of the court. The defending team has its players taking turns attempting to knock down the pile with a tennis ball, from a throwing crease line.

• . If you knock down the pile, but somebody in the opposing team catches the ball, your entire team is out and play switches sides. But if you knock it down and they don’t catch it, then the real game begins. The defending team, which brought down the pile now goes about trying to stack it back up, while the attacking team attempts to hit the rebuilders with the tennis ball.

• The dynamic is very weird, as the rebuilders dart around near the scattered pile, trying to rebuild, and repeatedly scattering as the opposing team takes shots at them. Both attackers and rebuilders tend to coordinate in emergent ways. There are no formal leaders. If the rebuilders manage to restack all 7, they win. If the attackers manage to hit every one of the rebuilders with the tennis ball before the restacking is complete, they win. Then they get their turn at attempting creative destruction.

LAGORI

• How to get started?• 1) You will need a pile of stones. The stones have to be

in a dimension to so as to enable it to stay in a vertical pile. The pile length can be 5 stones high or 15 stones high. Randomly chosen stones give maximum fun value, as they vary in their shape and size, and re-piling them will make for comic value.

• 2) You need a ball. The ball is used to hit other members, so a soft ball should be used. For more stinging thrills, you could use a harder ball.

• 3) You need a team. The more team members, the better.

• 4) You need a ground to play on. Don’t play in a ground with obstructions like trees or poles.

• Rules• 1) A toss decides which team strikes the stone-pile first.• 2) A player of team A dislodges the stone-pile with the ball. As soon

as this is done, team A’s players try and reassemble the pile back.• 3) Team B tries to stop it, by hitting team A’s players with the ball.

This will render them out.• 4) Team B, trying to get them all out, will target at likewise all the

players of team A.• 5) The aim of team B would be to disallow team A to rearrange the

stone-pile.• 6) After team A’s turn, team B will play• Lagori is best explained when played. So logon to lagori fast!