Ludo - a rule book?

On a boring, depressing sunday afternoon at my friend's place, what with the godawful weather and a feeling of impending doom looming upon us, we decided to lighten up the mood... by playing Ludo!

A little historical fact about Ludo from Wikipedia:

Pachisi (as Ludo was then known) is said to have originated in India during 6 A.D. or earlier. Traces of early boards survive in the cave temples of Ellora in the Deccan region, and also at Agra and Allahabad. The Mughal emperor Akbar Khan (1542-1605) had a huge open-air board of marble. In the centre was a dais on which he and his courtiers sat. Instead of pieces, the emperor used girls from his harem, (sigh...ofcourse the Mughals would so such a thing) perhaps emulating Sultan Mohammed who is said to have played “living chess” in Grenada in 1408. In the 1890s pachisi was adapted and modified (and subsequently patented) as Ludo, under which name it appeared in England about 1896.

Now, I'm guessing most people from Desiland and places nearby are well aware of this game. Im going to literally translate the Urdu terminology into English, so apologies for any funny translations. Here's what the general undisputed rules of the game are: Minimum of two, maximum of 4 players, get to choose a colour each, which represents their 'house' - with four 'gotis' or pieces. Each player needs to roll a 6 on the die (or dice, depending on how fast you want to finish the game)to get one piece out of their 'house' at a time.

As a 6 is rolled, that player will then move their way across the board, until they come to their final 'house' in the center of the board. Along the way other players' gotis may be 'killed' if the lucky player rolls the dice and gets an exact number which lets him/her land EXACTLY on someone else's 'goti'. Oh, and your 'goti' is untouchable if it is 'standing' on of those 'stops' ( surprisingly, you only find the extra stops ( i.e. 8 spaces away from the home stops) in desi Ludo boards - see image)

THOSE are the undisputed rules of playing Ludo. So yea the story goes that me, my friend and her younger brother started off playing Ludo. Her younger brother INSISTED upon choosing the green colour. Why, I asked him? "Kyunkay green Islam ka rang hai aur lucky hai" (Because green is the colour that represents Islam and is lucky too).

Now, WHO could argue with that pearl of wisdom! Ive seen a lot of Ludo superstitions (my favourite one being where my cousin would roll the dice and WHACK the dice bucket on an unsuspecting victim's head) but THIS one took the cake.Anyway, off we got started and that little tike was REALLY lucky! He kept on rolling 6s after 6s while I was still stuck in my miserable blue house. Maybe there was something to his theory. Smart alec!

Those were the general undisputed rules. Now, rather surprisingly, the smart alec tike had his own variation of the rules I'm normally used to. Of course, Ive come across some other variations as well and I have no idea which set of rules apply?

Variations:

1. If your 'goti' lands upon another on of your 'goti', you now have what is called a 'double goti' and your double goti can only move about in even spaces ( so if you get four, you move two spaces and so on). The double goti is untouchable and in fact, no one can move their goti across a double goti, and ofcourse that inevitably creates a goti traffic jam

2. You can't go into your final house unless you have killed another player's goti. If that means taking a couple of rounds of the Ludo board until you kill another player's goti, then so be it. BAHAHAHA.

3. If you are using two dice (is that an oxymoron?), you are allowed to abandon one die once you are moving up the path to your final house.

4. If you roll three 6's in a row, then you forfeit your turn, as the dice has been 'burnt'. I found this one to be the most disputed rule!

5. If, when you roll the dice and it falls of the Ludo board, it is considered to be burnt as well and the player who rolled it forfeits his/her turn.

So we had a healthy debate whilst we played the game regarding the rules. Lets just say that actions speak louder than words and the little tike won. Darn it!

I tried to save face by flipping the board over and trying to beat him at snakes and ladders, but by the looks of it, it just wasn't my day! I should've insisted upon the green goti this time round around, me thinks. How I yearned for the snakes and ladders board of my childhood, which had a GIANT snake at 99 which slid you straight down to 2! How FUN was that! They don't make such good stuff anymore, me thinks.

Snakes and ladders reminds me of the Indian game show, saanp aur seeri. I absolutely LOVED watching that show on Zee Tv. Even the host of the show looked like a snake! I so BADLY wanted to participate and get a chance to slide into that pool of water. I also dreamt about being a contestant on fun house (on STN, anyone remember all those great shows - Alf, Flash, Gumby, Camp Candy - I coul go on and on!) and Aik Minute on Zee Tv again ( where the contestants had one minute to do a certain task - how cool was that :p)

Well that was a nice trip down memory lane. Back to the point though, I wonder how many variations of Ludo exists? Any contributions people?