How do you play olinda keliya?
Two players sit either side of a board of fourteen cups, seven a side, with a store at each end and four olinda seeds in every cup. On your turn you lift every seed out of one of your own cups and drop them one at a time into the cups going anticlockwise, passing your own store but skipping your opponent's. If the last seed lands in a cup that already had seeds in it, you lift that whole cup and carry on sowing. If it lands in an empty cup, your turn ends and you take whatever is sitting in the next cup along. Whoever has collected the most seeds when one side runs out wins.
What size is a regulation carrom board?
The playing bed is a 74 cm square inside the frame. Each corner pocket is 4.45 cm across. The four base lines are 47 cm long, closed at both ends by 3.18 cm circles with red centres, and the centre circle is 17 cm across with a 3.18 cm red spot at the middle. Carrom men are 3.18 cm and the striker is 4.13 cm and about three times the weight.
How do you score pancha keliya?
You throw the shells onto a coconut husk and count how many land mouth up. If every shell lands up you score nothing and nothing moves. If none of them land up you score twelve. Anything in between is worth the number that came up, one to five. A one, a five or a twelve earns you another throw. A piece is locked until you throw a one or a five to release it, which is called sallang, and a five may be split a square at a time between your pieces while any other score must be spent by a single piece. You take an opponent's piece by stopping on it or by passing over it, but never while it is standing on a crossed square — a geval. First player to get all three pieces to the apex wins. Rules vary from house to house, so the sheet in our box gives one version and leaves room for yours.
What are olinda seeds?
They are the seeds of Abrus precatorius, a climbing vine. Each one is about 5 mm across, scarlet with a single black eye, and unusually consistent in weight — consistent enough that goldsmiths across South Asia used them as counterweights before they trusted brass. Fifty-six of them fill a seven-cup board. They are sorted by weight, never painted, and are not for eating.
Which timber do you use?
Halmilla for the playing surfaces and the olinda planks, because it stays flat and takes a lacquer well. Jak for the carrom frames, because it is heavy enough that a hard shot does not shift the board off the table. Everything is turned on a lathe before it is carved, and the colour is lac pressed onto the piece while it is still spinning.
When is Avurudu, and when should I order?
Sinhala and Tamil new year falls on 13 and 14 April. It is the two days of the year when all three of these games come out at once. Place an order before 20 March and it will go out in time; after that we will tell you honestly what the date looks like.
Do you ship outside Sri Lanka?
Yes, worldwide from Colombo. Pancha sets and olinda boards go by air. Carrom boards go by sea unless you ask otherwise, because a 74 cm board in a crate costs more to fly than it does to buy.
What is a sandakada pahana?
The carved semicircular stone set at the foot of a stairway in an Anuradhapura-period building — a moonstone. It is cut in concentric bands: a flame band on the outside, then processing animals, then geese, then a half lotus at the middle. One of our five finishes borrows its bands and its grey granite, which is why that board has no colour in it except the bronze.