Carom Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Heavy my new carom-board is -
Like Antony when Cleopatra lifts him -
But moved out of store-room, and set up for me
To practise, improve my skill so I can later play
With my wife, a regular champion in University
Of Mumbai year after year in the tournaments.

Alone now I play from both sides and watch
Myself and the game: the sounds of the shots
Are two-fold, one from the striker
And another from the coin as they hit edges
Or fall into the pockets: the sound shows me
Whether force and speed were generally enough,
Or precisely what was required.
It sounds like raining sometimes, at other times
Like a small cracker, sometimes like the teacher’s
Knuckles in old times on the dull students’ heads.

Sometimes the coin falls in smoothly
Without touching any of the wooden edge
And sound comes only when it falls inside
On other coins: a shot worthy of Arjun
Whose coin travels up to the pocket
And falls from edge like a champion diver
With least disturbance of water surface.

With more force, the coin twirls on top
Of the pocket, before it falls in.
Like Apollo, the striker sometimes chases
The coin and falls along with the victim
Into the pockets: I don’t know what they do in,
Poor striker! Soon he gets pulled out
From the dark hole into upper light.
But if he did that mischief with the Queen,
Then there is specific legislation governing:
One can pocket another and let Queen rest
Inside or she will be brought out for further
Persecution and buffetings in the marketplace.

The queen is always red, I don’t know why,
There is an element of romance in going
After her in the midst of eighteen other
Indifferent white and black guys on field.
One chases her from the beginning,
Some leave her to be won as a dessert.
Queen dominates both carom and chess.
While chess is very hierarchical,
Carom is more democratic, unnatural
That it has the Queen but no King,
Like in England and Norway?

My striker they say is made of ivory:
It hits the other side but will come back not
Describing an isosceles triangle, but at odd angle,
Making me feel that the speed was excessive,
Or wonder whether the edge is uneven.

Sometimes the striker after it leaves my fingers,
Strikes out on its own! It changes
And curves or drags askew which was not
Intended by me, behaves like a creature
With a will of its own, especially when
He has not been held tightly on leash.

While playing, my aim sometimes is correct,
And so is the force which generates the speed,
And yet the carom-men take a religious peramb
Around the pocket as if it were the lingam!
Some more religious than others, repeatedly...

I think how carom represents life: that what
You think should happen and what actually happens
Are very different things: can’t predict the pattern
Of events in life or coins on the board beyond a point.

But then, that is only on surface, once you study
The phenomenon or practise enough, then the shots
Land where they should, and so it is in life also,
With of course some exceptions, here and there,
Like lightnings strike where they will,
They can be neither controlled, nor planned for.

Carom-board after a game or two starts grating
And I put some boric powder which moves out
To the pockets along with coins or to the edges -
Not ‘with beaded bubbles winking at the brim’
Like in the wine of Keats on the Nightingale -
These deposit unevenly on the line on all four sides,
On the edges inside: in my younger days I was
Told not to swipe with fingers along the edge
To push the powder to the centre, for it is
Possible some small splinter could enter
Between the nail and the flesh, leading to pain
Severe: but now the Boards are modern.
You require oil in any business or game in life,
Whether it is boric powder or speed-money,
Or something else, ingenuity setting it down.
Excess of powder or oil can make your slip
Or get stuck, boss then expects larger bribe;
Like in everything, moderation is the key.

The play of hand, the fingers is infinitely
Various: I play carom with my right hand,
Though I do everything else with my left
Including writing, other games or activities.
When I was five years of age, the first board
A used one, my Dad had brought home,
Was happily playing with my mother,
Who was no mean player. My head was just
Above the Board, and I saw both of them
Playing with their right, and so did I on my turn,
And it has continued for the past five decades and more.

I play with my middle finger bent against my thumb
Middle touching the striker, but Dad played only
With forefinger, and Mom only middle finger.
Some do the scissor-cut, though I always wondered
How one could aim with the scissor-pattern of fingers
Or the zigzagging butterfly see its way through?
Come to think of it, no aim is physical,
It is more mental, the Zen and the art of carom.
One has to aim in the mind, just think and hit –
The arrow flows out of your involuntary system.
The adjustment between fingers, eyes and mind
With muscles takes place somewhere else...
Something else guides the missile, I think.

Like of the planets and shapes of clouds,
I have not understood the reason behind
The lines, circles, semi-circles ending
With arrow tips at either end above base-line;
Or, the centre-piece with a red circle,
And eight triangles inside the large black
Circle, each triangle ending on the periphery.
Four triangles with red painted half, and
The rest black, but all eight have one half blank
Meaning the colour of the board surface.
Also, it leaves eight small triangles, touching
On red circle at centre of the Board.
What is the significance of all this geometry?
Like with the blue sky, and the white clouds,
You may ask them questions repeatedly
But there will be no reply vouchsafed.

Once the designs are there, some rules
Are dependent on them, but not all:
Like you cannot keep striker but full
On red circle at either end of the base line.
There is no rule about the eight triangles
At the centre. It is as if they don’t exist.
I can say the same thing about many things
In my life, too.