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Ball 99 · 1999

tambola: a Diwali party in an apartment building in Mumbai, India

The device here: nickname. Your caller: Kelly.

Ball 99. Lamps on every balcony, rangoli patterns in coloured powder by the doors, and all the neighbours sitting on mats in the building’s courtyard with tickets and pencils. It was Diwali, and someone was calling tambola.

Kelly sat cross-legged next to Tam. “Ninety numbers, just like on the ship,” Kelly said. The caller, an uncle from the third floor, gave every number a name, and the whole courtyard ticked their tickets and laughed.

There were shouts for an early five, for each line, and for a full house. “The fun is everyone calling out together,” said the uncle, and he handed Ama the box of numbers.

Where this comes from: The year is just the ball’s number. Tambola is a living party game in India; no single written source, and the nicknames are our own.

Kelly’s nicknames

  • 1 — “one lamp in the window”
  • 4 — “a sail on the sea”
  • 9 — “a kite with a long tail”
  • 16 — “a stick and a curl of rangoli”
  • 21 — “a swan and a candle”
  • 27 — “a duck with a walking stick”
  • 45 — “half of ninety”
  • 60 — “minutes in an hour”
  • 89 — “one before the end”

✍️ Write your own nickname calls Next stop: lô tô →