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Anna Peter

MUMBAI, Feb. 18

FOR Scrabble-lovers scrabbling for months to get their hands on a board and chips, there's good news: Mattel Toys will relaunch the product in May 2003. Mattel Toys India's Chief Financial Officer, Mr Nitin Kotak, said, "We are relaunching Scrabble according to international specifications and quality."

When queried about why the word game had been off store shelves, company officials said production had been stopped for a certain period, but refused to say why.

However, according to Ms Anuradha Paraskar, Marketing Director, Mattel Toys India, in a communication, the reason boards were unavailable was that the company had been in a legal tangle with another and that was "the reason the market is dry currently. It is our brand and we will soon launch an international quality Scrabble in our market."

According to a toys, games and sports goods dealer, Mr P. T. Jain of Jain Sports, the board game has been off the shelves for a year-and-a-half. However, there is a CD version of Scrabble that sells for Rs 500. He said that Scrabble's brand image was so strong that customers still ask for the board game. He said: "There are likely to be more enquiries now, considering that the vacation season, the peak season for buying games, will start in April." His shop sells about 8-10 Scrabble CDs a month.

On how the shop deals with queries for the game, Mr Jain said customers would be told the game was unavailable, but would also be shown other locally-produced word-building games. The more popular ones are Spell-O-Fun, priced at Rs 105, and Wordpower, Rs 115.

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