The year was 1982. Somewhere in Lucknow cantonment, a young major’s wife was giving finishing touches to her immaculately made hair bun. The monthly Ladies’ Club meet was due to roll out in a few minutes and Darshi Harkirat Singh was never one to be late. An Indian army officer’s wife seldom is. A few minutes later as she made her way into the Officers’ Mess, she bumped into a senior officer’s wife. A quick hello from Darshi was followed by a question from the lady that would change the way Darshi would spend most afternoons there on. “Do you play Mahjong, Mrs Singh?” the lady had asked. And thus began Darshi’s initiation into the Chinese game. “Before I knew it I was part of a foursome and shuffling the tiles like a pro,” the petite 60-something Darshi reminisces today.
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But those were the early ’80s and Mahjong was as popular with the wives of our men in uniform as it was in mainland China. “Most of the senior ladies knew how to play...it was the done thing then,” Darshi, who has been playing for more than a decade, says. The saying went that if an army wife knew how to dish out a sumptuous Chinese meal, chances were she also knew how to win hands down at Mahjong. “Whenever we shifted stations, I would invariably find someone who knew the game. It isn’t so now,” says Darshi. For the fauji ladies clubs are only focused on their army-wife club activities and most young officers’ wives are also working professionals who, as Darshi adds, would never find an afternoon free.
Which makes Darshi Harkirat Singh and her three Mohali-based friends—Kanak Saksena, Raj Rai and Nirmal Khaira — bond more than ever before. Almost every day, as the hands on the clock inch towards 10.30 a.m, the foursome gathers around a square table in any one of their homes. The next two hours, as the ladies put it, “just fly past.”
Curious to see what’s made them never miss a date for 10 years now, we troop in at Raj Rai’s home. She’s also a wife of a retired Colonel and a Mahjong enthusiast. Strangely, no loud chatter greets us as we enter the room where the women are sitting across the table with Scrabble-like stands in front of them. The only sounds you can catch are the clicking of game tiles and a conversation peppered with Chinese words: “Three booze”, “Five dragon”, “Pung”, “Cong”.
Clearly, Mahjong, played with as many as 144 rectangular tiles, each of which has either a Chinese lettering or symbol or painting, isn’t an easy game to gather at one go. It’s a little like a card game and as many as 48 hands can be made. A single guide book can never really pack in all the rules. “There are many versions of the game. The Chinese, of course, have their original one and there’s the American, Korean, Japanese, and the Indian, which has been influenced by the British,” says Rai.
While the Indian army wives have been long associated with the game in the country, Kanak Saksena, wife of a former tea planter tells us how old-timers in the tea garden companies in the Northeast continue to play Mahjong. “I believe the British memsahibs popularised the game when the European tea companies were being set up decades ago,” says the 70-year-old, who picked up the game during her husband’s tenure in Assam.
Harsimrat Kaur is one loyal player in the tea belt. Her husband is a CEO with a tea company in Assam’s Mangaldai district and it was while shifting into a new bungalow that she found an old Mahjong set tucked away in the store. “At first, I didn’t really know what it was until I mentioned it at a party,” she says. “I realised almost everyone possessed a set and knew a bit about the game.” It took a while for Kaur to make a foursome but a group now meets occasionally to play a few rounds.
Elsewhere in Mumbai, which has its own set of rules for the game, Mahjong players are enjoying their moment in the sun. This March saw a special three-day event for lovers of the game, whih was put together by veteran players like Sushila Pratap Singh— who is also a Mahjong teacher—and Chandrakala Aggarwala. The star guest was Tom Sloper, an international expert on the game, who not only played rounds but also introduced the Mumbai ladies to foreign versions of Mahjong. “The Mumbai style of Mahjong has more special hands for every round played,” says Sloper, over phone from California. He even carried an Indian rulebook back with him. “The Indian style is similar to the one played in most British colonies,” he says.
“In China, only men play Mahjong and they gamble, unlike in India,” says Nirmal Khaira. “All Mahjong played in India is done using pointers though we refer to them in money denominations,” Darshi says. That bit of information earns her a quick reprimand from Khaira for not paying attention. “See, that’s why we can’t gossip. The game requires attention all the time,” says Khaira, who is such an avid player that her children gift her a new Mahjong set every birthday. “You can’t get them here though I’ve that heard in Calcutta you could still find an old Chinese shop that sells the sets,” she says.
Luckily, they have had a chance to grab a set each from trips made to Canada, Australia and America, where Khaira got her prized antique ivory set.
The game is one that requires skill and an ounce of luck. “It’s a dying tradition. Since it requires time to both learn and play, the younger lot isn’t interested,” says Rai. “I would love to get more players involved. As for us, we will continue playing as long as Alzheimer’s doesn’t make us stop,” she says with a laugh as the game clicks on.