Described in passing in Edward Falkener's book 'Games Ancient And Oriental and how to play them' (1892, page 163), thus: "an Indian game of cards, ... in which after every deal, the winners take at chance [ie randomly, unseen] as many cards from the hand of the loser as they have won tricks, and give back to him in return as many of the worst cards they have in their own hands; and thus at every deal he is worse off, till he is happily out of the game." The above mechanism appears to be in use in at least one variant of Indian games with Ganjifa cards, so I would imagine this game to be played with those cards rather than 'western' ones.