From an Undocumented Palace to Every Front Room

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Carrom is thought to have emerged as an indoor game in India, though no surviving document pins down when. The strongest physical evidence for the game's early social status is a single surviving board, its playing surface made of glass, still kept in a palace at Patiala, one preserved object rather than a written account. What is not in doubt is where the game ended up: a striker-and-disc game played on a board between 73.5 and 74 centimetres per side, with nineteen pieces beyond the striker, spread from Indian palaces into homes across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where it remains a fixture of festivals and family gatherings today.