These Are My Rooks--What've You Got?

These are the temples at Rameshvaram where Shiva manifested as a towering column of fire.   Wouldn't they make perfect rooks?

And now for some piercing words from Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, circa the year 1000:

'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

It's not every board game that inspires poetry--you don't get a lot of emotional words about Hungry Hungry Hippos or Monopoly, for example.