The New Indian Express ·
The enduring charm of Three-in-a-Row
Among the myriad traditional games I have encountered over the years, there is one that speaks to me more than most. In the South, it is called Kattam Vilayattu. In parts of North India, it is often known as Teen Goti, literally ‘three pieces’. Our ancestors, it would seem, were not always terribly creative when it came to naming games. Kattam Vilayattu belongs to a long tradition of three-in-a-row games that have been played across the world for centuries. The idea itself has always intrigued me. Why three?
The more one looks, the more the number appears everywhere. Almost every culture has a holy trinity. In Christianity, there is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Go further back into ancient belief systems and the pattern emerges again and again. This gives us some idea about what could have been an inspiration for the game.
Mention Three-in-a-Row, and most people immediately think of X and O, or Noughts and Crosses, or Tic-Tac-Toe, depending on what they grew up calling it. It is a simple game played on a grid of nine squares. It is usually played with pencil and paper, or traditionally on the back of a slate with a piece of chalk, as students did more than 200 years ago. Players take turns marking an X or an O on an empty space on the board. Whoever gets three in a row vertically, horizontally, or diagonally wins the game. The name X and O, or Noughts and Crosses, comes from the use of X and O in the game itself. Interestingly, the name Tic-Tac-Toe was not originally used for this game. It referred to a children’s game played on a slate, consisting of trying with the eyes shut to bring the pencil down on one of the numbers of a set, thus scoring points. Somewhere in the early 20th century, the name was adopted for the familiar grid game we know today. Perhaps the rhythm of the phrase and the set of three words helped the transition.
