Cards Against Sanskaar: An Indian version of Cards Against Humanity is here to offend you

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Updated: Apr 03, 2018 15:09 IST

‘A party game for horrible anti-nationals’, that’s the tagline of Cards Against Sanskaar. It’s an Indian, unofficial version of Cards Against Humanity -- a game known for cards containing politically incorrect or risqué content.

True to being un-sanskaari, its cards are cheeky and don’t shy away from poking fun at everything, from primetime shouting matches on TV to Patanjali condoms (No, they don’t actually exist… yet). To play the game, a player reads out a fill in the blank statement from a black card, while others match it with their funniest white card – just like Cards Against Humanity.

A post shared by Smarter Than A Waffle (@stawdio) on Apr 1, 2018 at 8:32am PDT

The irreverent cards also contain pop culture references like ‘Pushpa, I hate ____’ to the family WhatsApp groups that no young Indian can escape from.

On April 1, a new Instagram handle @stawdio (Smarter Than a Waffle), posted about Cards Against Sanskaar being launched soon. With the timing being so, it begged the question: Was it a clever April fool’s prank? The answer is not as straightforward. Smarter Than a Waffle design studio’s co-founder Adrita Das, talking to the media for the first time, says, “We were toying with the idea of such a game when a few of us friends were playing Cards Against Humanity last year. But we didn’t really do anything about it. The political scenario at the time had a sanskaari focus to it. Alok Nath was also trending as a meme. We just thought the name Cards Against Sanskaar had a nice ring to it.”

“The entire appeal of Cards Against Sanskaar is that nobody is spared”, says Adrita Das.

Mumbai-based Das is a visual artist, writer and animator. A day before April Fool’s Day, she began brainstorming with the studio’s co-founder Karan Dilip Worah, a documentary filmmaker and scriptwriter. They wanted to pull a prank and also explore the possibility of people actually wanting an Indian version of the game. Das and Worah contacted an old friend, Bengaluru-based Akhil Singh, a technopreneur, and got the website up and running within a day – just in time for April Fool’s.

Not surprisingly, a lot of people fell for it. So far, over 650 people have signed up on their pre-order link, Das shares. Encouraged by the social media response, the three of them then decided to make the game a reality. Initially, the trio plan to release a basic small deck, and introduce expansion packs at a later stage. They are currently working on more designs, costing and production processes.

In a country where people are quick to claim hurt sentiments, such a game is sure to ruffle a few feathers. But Das and her friends are ready to go all in. “While writing the cards, at times, we did think whether something was very offensive, and if we should shy away from mentioning names of companies and individuals. But the entire appeal of Cards Against Sanskaar is that nobody is spared.” They have also lawyered up, should trouble arise.

You can book a set of Cards Against Sanskaar on www.cardsagainstsanskaar.com

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