How many cards does each player get in Donkey?

In the Indian Donkey card game, the whole 52-card deck is dealt out, so the hand size depends on the table: 13 cards each with 4 players, 17 or 18 with 3, 10 or 11 with 5, and 8 or 9 with 6. Uneven hands are normal.

Can you play Donkey with 2 players?

The Indian Donkey card game works with two players, but it is a weak version of the game. With two, an off-suit card picks up only two cards, so the big swings never happen. Three players is the real minimum, and four is the classic table.

What is a Thulla in the Bhabhi card game?

A Thulla is an off-suit card played by someone who cannot follow the suit that was led. It stops the round immediately — nobody after them gets to play. Whoever played the highest card of the original suit must then pick up the entire pile and add it to their hand.

Is Bhabhi the same as Thulla, Getaway and Donkey?

Yes. Bhabhi, Thulla, Getaway, Laad, Donkey, Bhabho, Kazhutha, Kalutai, Tochoo and Cangkul are regional names for the same game. The core rule is identical everywhere: follow the suit if you can, and if you can't, your off-suit card ends the trick.

How many players do you need for Bhabhi?

Bhabhi needs at least three players and works well up to six with a single 52-card deck, but four is the classic table and by far the most common. The Thulaa app plays it as a pure four-player game: every table, whether Quick Play or a private room, seats exactly four.

Can you play Bhabhi online with friends?

Yes. Thulaa is a free app for iPhone and Android that runs live four-player Bhabhi games. Create a private room, share the code, and your friends join straight into your table. There is also Quick Play, which matches you with live opponents in about a minute.

Also known as

Donkey card game rules: how to play both versions

Short answer

Two different card games are called Donkey. In India and Pakistan, Donkey is the follow-suit shedding game also called Bhabhi, Thulla or Kazhutha: deal the whole deck, the Ace of Spades leads, follow the suit if you can, and the last player still holding cards is the donkey. The other Donkey is a children’s matching game: pass cards until someone collects four of a kind and touches their nose; the last to notice is the donkey.

Telling them apart in one question

Do you pass cards, or play them to a trick? If cards get passed face down around the table until someone collects four of a kind, you want the matching game. If everyone plays one card to the middle and has to follow the suit led, you want the Bhabhi game — which is the one this site is about.

	Donkey (shedding)	Donkey (matching)
Also called	Bhabhi, Thulla, Getaway, Laad	Pig, Spoons (variant)
Type	Trick-based shedding	Collecting / matching
Goal	Empty your hand	Collect four of a kind
Deck	Full 52 cards	Four cards per player
The donkey is	Last player holding cards	Last player to touch their nose

How to play Donkey, the Indian card game

This is the game played across India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal under a dozen names, Bhabhi and Thulla among them. You need one standard 52-card deck and three to six players.

Deal every card. Shuffle and deal the whole deck out clockwise, one card at a time. Some players may get one card more than others.
The Ace of Spades leads. Whoever holds it plays it as the first card of the game.
Follow the suit. Going round the table, everyone must play a card of the suit that was led if they have one.
If everyone follows, the round is discarded. Those cards leave the game for good. Whoever played the highest card starts the next round with any card they like.
If you can’t follow, play anything. That off-suit card (a thulla) stops the round at once. Whoever played the highest card of the led suit picks up every card on the table and starts the next round.
Empty your hand to escape. The last player still holding cards is the donkey.

A regional variant played around Kasaragod in Kerala adds a trump suit, which changes the game substantially — off-suit trumps can win tricks rather than just ending them. The Kazhutha page explains that version.

Full rules, with a worked example →

Donkey with 2, 3 or more players

The whole deck is always dealt, so the number of players sets the size of each hand:

Players	Cards each	How it plays
2	26	Works, but weak: an off-suit card picks up only two cards
3	18, 17, 17	Slow start, fast finish
4	13 each	The classic table
5	11, 11, 10, 10, 10	Off-suit cards arrive in the first few rounds
6	9, 9, 9, 9, 8, 8	Sharp from the first round; 7 or more need two decks

More on each size: three players, and why two is not the real game, and five, six or more players.

Donkey, the matching game

The children’s game, for roughly 3–13 players (4–7 is best). Take as many sets of four matching cards as there are players and deal four to each person.

Everyone picks one card they don’t want.
On a count, everyone passes that card face down to the player on their left, all at once.
Repeat until somebody holds four of a kind.
That player silently puts their cards down and touches their nose. Everyone else must notice and copy. The last to do it loses.

The loser of each hand takes a letter of the word D-O-N-K-E-Y. Spell the whole word and you are out — so everyone starts with six lives.

It is a game of peripheral vision, and it is not related to Bhabhi at all beyond sharing an insult for the loser.

Kazhutha, Kalutai and the rest

“Donkey” is simply the English translation of what the loser gets called in several Indian languages — kazhutha in Malayalam, kalutai in Tamil. In Punjabi-speaking families the older insult was bhabhi, though many tables have moved to “donkey” precisely because it’s the harmless one.