Hi ppl

And there I sat just looking at them. Reminiscing. Remembering old times. And could not help taking a trip down memory lane. Surprisingly there wasn’t much traffic there.

MARBLES

These little spherical glass thingys were like the most prized possessions. The one who possessed the most was hailed as king. There wasn’t any special season to play marbles, but yea they were most prominent during and before rains. Oh yeah I still remember the games, the 10-20 game wherein there was a “gull” or a small hole which was used to reach from 10-100 in steps of 10. Then there was the “triangle game” where in you could win more marbles. In short it was “bacche log ka gambling”.

The triangle wasn’t just a game. Things could get really bad if someone lost his marbles (pun intended). I have witnessed so many fights because of this game. Had been in some myself!!

TOPS

As in Bhavra or Lattu. This was one of my favourite games. I still am proud of the fact that I can rotate the top on my palm from the air anyday, anytime. This game was really simple. There was a circle containing the opponents top and you have to spin your top in a stylish manner in such a way that there has to be some contact between your top n the one in the circle. Then the opponent will retrieve your top (with one foot in the circle) with the help of the rope before the top stopped spinning. So the mantra was to make sure that your top is as far as possible after making contact. And if there were more than 1 opponents top in the circle, then the top would be retrieved by forming a sort of human chain with the help of the rope. Another nasty variation of this game was 3 circles, wherein you could actually destroy the opponents top!! Yea as kids we would be really BAD.

KITES

Now I wasn’t very fond of kites, because unlike the above two games, flying kites wasn’t that easy. First of all the selection of kites was really crucial. The strength of the kite was checked by rubbing the main diagonal across the head.

After selection of kites came the part that I hated the most, tying the kanni. Now you gotta be a real pro to do this, because only the right kanni would ensure that your kite flew far and wide. There were special kind of kannis for special kite flying sessions. Some people flew kites for fun, but others were more interested in cutting others kites’ midair wit a special sorta thread which had glass shards!! I never was that kite-crazy as such. I just flew a kite properly just once.

There was this good colorful kite lying around and my cousin wasn’t at home. So I had his firki (the thing that holds the thread aka manja) all to myself. I started flyin the kite and it kept on goin farther and farther and finally I had exhausted all the thread of the firki. I was feeling on top of the world at having done that, was expecting a pat on my back from my cousin. My cousin came and seeing no thread on his firki, gave me a firing ill never forget. I tried retrieving the kite, but it had gone too far. And  all the thread was lost. My cousin was really really mad at me! That was the end of flying kites for me.

But the high I got after seeing my kite flying high, the tension felt by my fingers, the pain because of the numerous cuts on my finger because of the sharp thread, was one of its kind!!

TRUMP CARDS

Trump card were a rage in school. The trend was started by the WWF Trump Cards. The descriptions of our favourite superstars in terms of fights fought, rank, chest, biceps, height, weight just made them more bigger heroes in our eyes. Oh how can I forget the joy I felt on winning a “Bret Hitman Hart” (whose rank was no.1), “Undertaker” (because of the height 7’1”), and “Yokozuna” (weight 250kgs), “Tatanka” (max no of matches won). So many hours were spent playing this game. And whoever has played trump cards will never forget these knida lines. “height 6’1” CLASH”, “weight 150 kgs CLASH”. Clash was used to prevent tie’s. I still wonder at the strategies we used to overcome such game errors.

The WWF trump cards gave rise to cricket trump cards, where you had our cricketing heroes with matches played, innings, runs, catches, batting and bowling averages, man of matches etc.

NAME PLACE ANIMAL THING

This was the big daddy of simple constructive indoor games. This game was played in schools, with my building mates, cousins, mom, dad, uncles, aunts you name it. This game had a universal appeal. The challenge of actually using your thinking cap was quite something. Whenever it was my turn to say the alphabet, I always used to purposely stop at the letter Q. this was my favourite letter and I used to quickly finish off writing the name place animal and thing (Quinthia, Queensland, Quarrel and Quill) and start the countdown (tick tick 1, tick tick 2….) while the others were still fumbling with the name. It was really funny to see their expressions after I got straight 40 points and they got 5-10 points on Q.

LAGORI

This was another fun game. the rules simple. There were 7 stones piled one on top of the other to form a pyramid and there were 2 teams. Each player of each team had 3 chances in which to hit the stones and make them fall. Now the real action started!

One member of the opposite team guarded the circle in which the stones were to be reassembled. The team who hit the stones, now had the task of rebuilding the pyramid, but there was a catch. They should do the task without letting any member of the opposite team, hit them with the ball, on the back. this was like an “Aba-Dubi”. And if the opposite team threw a ball and if a member of the hitting team got the ball, he would throw it far away, but, with hands in the form of fists used to do that. In the meantime one member of the team that hit, would rebuild the pyramid. Once done, we would all rejoice and dance and chant “lagori, lagori...”.

GILLI DANDA

This game has been there since time immemorial. Remember Aamir Khan's reply to the question about his knowledge about cricket in Lagaan,“Ji haan. bachpan se khelte aa rahe hai. hum ika gilli danda kehet hai. aur tum sasure koi auro naam se khelat ho“. This game too was a hot favourite.

In this game we used a stick (danda) and a wooden cylindrical piece (gilli) with both sides conical. Initially one person scoops the gilli in the air with the danda, and the rest are fielding. If the gilli is caught the that player is out. If not, then the person starts his score. The gilli is hit on the conical edges so that it flies in the air and is then hit by the danda, jus like u hit a ball coming towards you with a bat. And this time too if its caught, you are out. Its just goes on this way. God, there used to be so many injuries due to this game. You had to be really sure while catching the gilli because it was pure wood. No wonder this game is hardly played nowadays!! But then like I said during our time as kids, we could be really BAD.

So friends those were the games that I used to play during my childhood, which I think have become extinct now. Ofcourse some board games like Scrabble, Chess, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Businessmove etc are there since ages, but of the above mentioned games, apart from kites (during makar sankranti) I hardly come across anyone playing any other games anymore. Ok agreed times have changed. Technology has taken over. Blah blah blah. But still these games were true treasures. I mean apart from being forms of entertainment, they also were a kind of glue, connecting us with other kids our age. Instilling in us a sense of brotherhood, a sense of togetherness.  

Nowadays, the rat race has really kept the kids away from the playgrounds. I mean you take any average kids life. Get up in the morning. Go to school. Come back home. Go for classes or tuitions. Come back home. Finish off homework. Have dinner. Watch tv. Go to sleep. And on weekends watch Pogo, Cartoon Network, Disney Kids, Hungama, Nickelodeon etc. or play computer games or as usual study. Where do kids get time to explore new games?

Ok fine this isn’t the case with all of them, but with most of them it sure is. Just the other day I asked a kid from my building, “Hey don’t you’ll play with tops?” and he replied back with “whats that??”. Asked the same kid the name of a computer game and pat came the reply, “I love the Max Payne. Kya tujhe pata hai usme bullets slow motion me jaate hai”(do you know we can have bullets in slow motion in max payne). I mean this kid was hardly 10 or 11 years old and he had no idea of a kids game but he knew much more about a game rated MATURE. Get the picture?

So just smiled back at my childhood treasures, and kept them in a more safer place. And continued cleaning my locker. Thanks to the cancelled plan, it opened a door of my past that was closed for a long time. Now that the treasures were restored and the memory was immortalized, I happily continued my work, humming my favourite song.

Take Care

Ciao