A Puneite has developed what is probably the world's first carrom board for the visually challenged. Madan Purandare, who tweaked a normal carrom board to create this special one, claims this is the first of its kind.

Purandare, who heads Advait Parivar an NGO that works to help people with physical disabilities, told MiD DAY, "I have verified it through various search engines on the Internet. If anybody has done it in the past, I am ready to take back my claim."

Training started

He has started training the visually challenged and organises gatherings for them. "The gathering is mostly on weekends. "The blind people play carrom with remarkable enthusiasm," said Purandare, adding, "The innovation is only a month old and I am happy to see its success with my blind friends."

Reena Patil, a visually challenged student at Pune University, has been trained as a coach. "I am enjoying the game and can explain it to my friends," she said.

For tournaments

The rules prescribed by the International Carrom Federation have been translated into Braille and the players are also being taught the theory of the game. "We are standardising the game, so that it can be played by the blind all over the world," said Purandare.

He hopes to eventually organise carrom tournaments for the blind in Pune.

How it works

All the carrom-men - white, black and queen have special identification marks so that they can be differentiated by touch. The striker has a hook to make it easily identifiable.

The board has grooves to mark base lines, arrows half circles, etc. These help players judge position of the striker and distance to the carrom-men to calculate the force of the hit.

The grooves don't obstruct the speed of the carrom-men on the board.