Chaya Nisarga brings people together through traditional board games

India has a rich history of board games that goes back millennia and games like Parcheesi (Ludo) are even mentioned in Indian epics like Mahabharata. But with the advent of the digital age, these rich traditions seem to be dying out. That’s what prompted Ravi Shankar Shinde to start Chaya Nisarga in 2000 to keep traditional board games alive.

“When I was growing up I used to play with these traditional boards a lot. I’d even say I played more than I studied. But my children have barely even seen them. They don’t even know what a pin-top is,” says the 55-year-old Shinde. “Increasingly, people live their lives on digital platforms that disconnect them from the real world. This is particularly true for children, whose migration to the online realm is compounded by an education system that emphasizes academic learning, sacrificing their right to play. Our products are an effort to encourage a return to the physical world,” he adds.

Chaya Nasagra boasts a catalogue of 30 Educational Toys, 20 puzzles, 10 board games, and a range of fridge magnets all made out of wood. But unlike a factory, 10 families work together and make all of them. “Handicrafts is a dying industry because people would like to work in a mall or an MNC. Over the span of 21 years, I have developed this small group of people; I give them the idea of what to create and how to create and provide employment to many. You have to keep your employees well-motivated and show them how much they are valued if you want to succeed,” explains Shinde.

But is this even an economically feasible endeavour? Shinde says, “It’s like cycling. The more you cycle the further you will go. A small-scale industry like ours doesn’t have any overheads, we are not very ambitious. We work because we are passionate about keeping the board games alive and not to turn a profit.” You can support their endeavor by purchasing their games from chayanisarga.com