A board is the stage of play.

 

A pachisi table, centered in the middle of a patterned pachisi board, centered in the middle of a plaza, centered possibly in the middle of a town. Centered in the middle of a culture, possibly in the middle of various people’s lives.

Pachisi is one of those things that is so incredibly foreign to most American audiences, but truly understandable to most Indian people. The aesthetic of Pachisi literally carved into social life to the point of needing not only one small board, but one large one for the small one to sit on as if saying “In case you didn’t realize, this is a Pachisi table.”

It also could be a celebration of Pachisi, a sort of engorged, phallic representation of showmanship as if to say “This is our Pachisi table.”

Safe to say, the Indian people seem rather proud of Pachisi.