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Ganjifa Lakshmi

Hand-painted round Ganjifa cards from Sawantwadi, dealt on green cloth and turned over on the beat: Lakshmi, the family photo, the Dashavatara cards, and the invitation on a lacquered box lid.

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Ganjifa is an old Indian card game played with round cards, and Sawantwadi in the Sindhudurg district of Maharashtra is one of the last places where the cards are still painted by hand. Layers of cloth and paper are pasted together and cut into discs, painted with fine brushes in natural colours and finished with lacquer. The Dashavatara set has ten suits, one for each of Vishnu's ten avatars, from the fish of Matsya to the horse of Kalki, with a king and a minister card in each suit. The same Chitari families also make Sawantwadi lacquerware: wooden boxes, toys and fruit, painted with flowers.

In this film the cards are dealt on a green cloth and turned over on the beat: Lakshmi first, then your family photo on a card with a painted border, then three cards of the Dashavatara set. The invitation itself is written on the inside of a lacquered box lid. The backs are plain green with a small painted lotus, so every card is dealt face down before it is turned. The cards are drawn in the Ganjifa style for this film; they are not painted by the craftsmen of Sawantwadi.

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