Street Games Of India: Common Games Played on Streets

Street Games Of India: Ikri-Dukri

The next game I learnt was called Ikri-Dukri – a kind of hop-scotch, with a thippi – a broken piece of earthen pot, about an inch-and-a-half in diameter, or a round flat stone. A rectangle about three yards long and two yards wide is drawn. This rectangle is divided into various compartments about a foot wide. The space of four-foot square in the middle is subdivided into four triangles by a cross. Beyond these triangles are three more parallel lines.

Standing on one foot one has to hop and push the thippi, mainly with the big toe, into the first three houses, one after another, then into the four triangles; and finally into the three houses beyond the triangles. The thippi must pass neatly through the various compartments.

Whoever succeeds in going first through all the compartments, a symbolic map of the three worlds, four oceans, and three heavens, is the winner.