Mahjong is Mandarin for “sparrows”, because that’s what the clattering tiles were thought to sound like, when the game was invented in Qing dynasty China, most likely in a port city, about 200 years ago.
Chances are you didn’t know this, and probably wouldn’t have cared, a couple of months ago. But something’s changed, hasn’t it?
Mahjong (pronounced exactly like it’s spelt) is suddenly everywhere.
In Mumbai, women meet over dim sum and tea to swap strategies, at venues that range from friends’ homes to cafes and fine-dine restaurants such as Yauatcha. In Delhi, exclusive gatherings operate like secret societies, united by revered tile and snack traditions. Young people are playing at nightclubs such as Jianghu in Los Angeles and networking hubs such as Hana House in New York, to the accompaniment of light shows and electronic dance music.
What’s drawing them to a game typically associated with octogenarians?
A few things have clicked. This is a screen-free sport that is neither too solitary nor too demanding. It can be played almost anywhere, as meditatively or intensely as the group of four decides. Perhaps most importantly, it has gone viral: popular on TikTok, hashtagged on Instagram. Actors and celebrities ranging from Amy Poehler to Sarah Jessica Parker have talked of their love for the game; Meghan Markle, in a now-typical word salad, recently called it “the background to the expansion of friendship”. Constance Wu played like an ace in Crazy Rich Asians (2018).
Around the world, over the past two years, popularity has seen a steady rise. Since 2023, mahjong sessions have been held at Mumbai’s Cricket Club of India (CCI) and Willingdon Sports Club and at the Mahjong Room restaurant in Bengaluru’s WelcomHotel by ITC.
Lets Mahjong, the group that organised the event at Yauatcha on August 1, was set up last year, and has organised similar events at cafés across the city. Earlier this year, a WhatsApp group called The Mahjong Network began organising sessions at restaurants and wellness centres in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Alibaug.
Show of fours
“Mahjong with my friends is what I need to help me check out after a tough day at work,” says Simran Mehta, 26, who works with a digital marketing agency in Mumbai. She began playing last year, she says, because the game hit the “sweet spot between stimulation and relaxation.”
A full session can last two to four hours. The aim is to be the first to assemble a complete hand (consisting of four sets made using a total of 14 tiles; though winning can also look different, based on house rules). Each turn offers a choice — draw one tile and discard another — adding an element of strategy and unpredictability.
Mahjong strikes the perfect balance between the monotony of Scrabble and the short-lived thrill of casual card games,” says Rajveer Batra, 21, a student of philosophy at University of California Los Angeles.
He and his twin brother Rohaan Batra, a student at Babson College in Massachusetts, are back home in Mumbai for the semester holiday and have been playing every week with their parents. “It’s exciting to see how competitive all four of us get, each with our own facial cues and favourite winning combinations,” Batra says, laughing.
Delhi’s Vineeta Sahni, 66, began playing with her daughter 25 years ago. “It takes a certain amount of alertness and is good for the mind,” she says. “That’s why Chinese families introduce it to children at a young age. I like to think of it as a life skill.”
Soon after it was invented, the game began to make its way around the world via steamship, travelling with exporters and businessmen. In a bit of a full-circle moment, some have begun using the game as a networking tool in the US.
“We curate who sits next to whom, to make sure everyone is playing against someone new,” says Subhas Kim Kandasamy, founder of a social club called Mahjong Palace, launched last September in New York City, with events now also held in London and Singapore. “People have met at the tables and formed friendships, gone on dates, even ended up doing business with the person sitting next to them.”
In terms of the game’s appeal, it helps a little that mahjong sets are expensive and not easy to find. Once made with jade, glazed ceramic and (very rarely) ivory, then with cow bone and bamboo, and now with resin or plastic, they are not, for instance, readily available online. One’s mahjong set, therefore, can be as much of a style statement as one’s sneakers: Are your tiles custom-designed or vintage, antique or luxury?
“The game’s charm lies in its communal spirit too. It can be complex or it can be simple. Anyone can play it in its most basic form, including my six-year-old, who is just getting started,” says Sheetal Patel, 54, co-founder of Lets Mahjong.
“The constant shuffling and discarding gives a person time to think. It opens up the mind and lets you see things from different angles,” Patel adds. “That’s part of why Gen Z has taken to it.” It lets you do nothing, in other words, while still looking trendy.
