Portable Game Board

Madras, India, February 1990

I purchased this fold-up game at a train station in Madras. It opens into two playing boards. On one side there’s Ludo, a version of the Indian game Pachisi. On the other is Snakes & Ladders, a game that may be close to 2,000 years old. In 1943 it was imported to America, rebranded as “Chutes & Ladders” for the snake-loathing Christian nation.

I don’t recall how often Carina and I played these games on the Howrah Express; we had many rattling hours of leisure. What I do remember is the gnawing impatience of vacationing in India while a long-overdue revolution gathered steam in Nepal. And having to explain to Carina that, even though we might never again visit the sultry southern beaches of Tamil Nadu, my place at that moment was in Kathmandu: recording the overthrow of Nepal’s monarchy for the San Francisco Examiner.

I had no idea at the time, but my three closest relationships would be transformed that season. Nepal—for centuries “The World’s Only Hindu Kingdom”—became a clumsy and corrupt republic. And when Carina and I reunited in San Francisco, our already fragile bond was shattered by a third upheaval: my brother Jordan’s suicide.

When I played board games as a kid I took them at face value. One, two, three, ladder; 24, 25, 26, snake. Now, of course, I realize that games are often metaphors for our lives: exhilarating climbs, precipitous descents, picking up the pieces, pushing onward again.

It’s sort of unfair. Because while any upward movement demands diligence (ladders don’t build themselves), our falls from grace can result from a single misstep. We can also be pushed, without warning, onto an entirely new playing board—and into a game with completely different rules.

Maybe I fucked up that February. Maybe if I’d played a bit differently, I’d have won a Pulitzer for my coverage of Nepal’s revolution. Maybe Carina and I would have had kids;
my brother, if I could have saved him, would be their uncle.

I know it’s a cliché, but honestly? I wish there had been a practice round.