Team Viva traces back the wonderful and simple games that livened up your childhood and are slowly back in circulation
As Riddhi stood at the counter of the gaming arcade, waiting for the cashier to tell her how much she had to shell out for the expensive XBox that his son chose, she caught sight of something familiar, stacked up on the pile beside the cash register. She picked it up and it was a box of Cleudo, a game that had her and her family hooked on for hours. It took her down memory lane to the wonderful games that surrounded their lives — both indoor and outdoor.
She is a case in point. While the last generation to have engaged themselves with these games hold on to bitter-sweet memories, kids today are trying to beat an unknown opponent, playing from anywhere in the world over the Internet. “They will never know these simple joys,” chuckled a 70-year-old Abbas.
let’s take a walk down memory lane.
Seasons in the sun
Yeah, we may be quoting Westlife but really, there was a time when the first thing we did when we returned from school in the evening was to rush to the playground. And accept it, games like pithoo garam, gilli danda or the classic chor police and pakran pakrai kept us engaged for hours.
Pithoo garam got us dirtiest the most but it was one of those games that required neither too much of effort nor did it pit one player against the other. It was a simple game involving seven pieces of flat stones, stacked one upon the other (in decreasing order of height). The player had to hit the stack and then run to erect the pile before the other team gets hold of the ball. It is a very popular game and therefore, there are about a million rules to it.
Most kids growing up in the 90s and before just needed about four feet of space and a piece of chalk to play hopscotch. If you remember the old Cadbury Dairy Milk ad, ‘kya swad hai zindagi mein’ you would vaguely recall a woman taking a hop or two in one clipping. The rules are simple, perhaps the reason why even grown ups enjoyed it, too. All you had to do was make a hopscotch court (usually a count from one to nine), throw in a coloured stone in one of the boxes and hop into the court to retrieve them.
If you remember “kati patang tera kaunsa rangIJ” you had the best childhood. Ever. Kati patang was a game that taught a lot about observation. As per instructions, one had to narrate the riddle and the player in front had to say a colour aloud and the rest of the players had to scram and touch an object of the colour. So, how soon do you think you want to play it againIJ
“Poshampa bhai poshampa, lal qile mein kya hua, sau rupay ki ghari churayi, ab to jail mein jana padega, jail ki roti khani padegi, jail ka pani peena padega. Ab to jail mein jana padega.” Now that we are all grown up, we ponder why we even played it. Why would someone voluntarily play a game where he or she would have to drink jail waterIJ But the funny song apart, this was quite fun. A long line of kids running below an arch, made by two players, with none having the slighest of clue as to who the arch would come down on. Could anything get any betterIJ
And how can we ever forget marblesIJ Those little greenish glass balls that had us looking bright eyed (full of greed, of course) at the big jar of marbles at the local shop. It involved a lot of struggling and display of dexterity as one had to skillfully hit a bunch of marbles with one marble using just one finger. The one who manages to move as many marbles took them home. We agree, it was quite addictive.
These were few of the unique ones we decoded for you. There were plenty of others. Famous among them are ringa ringa roses, kho-kho, barf pani and moorti ghoom (which both included one player ordering around, not bossily though) and of course, akkar bakkar bambay bo.
Within the four walls
We cannot even begin to recall the number of pens that our teacher took away after we were caught engaged in a serious game of pen fight in the middle of class. But that could not stop us. We continued with book cricket, thumb wrestling, knots and crosses, bingo and the most popular — name, place, animal, thing. We are all familiar with the tearing and spoiling of the last pages of our notebooks and trying to hide it under other books as the teacher passed by.
These were games over which friendships were made and enemies declared. And there were many others, too. Try and recall those incredibly fast hand clapping games that had so many funny songs to them. It turned our palms red while keeping track of the twisted synchronisation.
listening to frantic heartbeat as we hid from the denner while playing hide and seek in various nooks and corners of our homes was one of the pure joys of life. Did you know of SardinesIJ It was the same but with multiple seekers for one player.
Then there were the musical chairs which was always mandatory at birthday parties which left us huffing and puffing for seats all the while running around the lined up chairs. Numbers, which we didn’t like in mathematics, were loved in Seven up or Bingo. These numeral games would capture our interest for long with no respect to time or pending homework.
Games like antakshari, pictionary, scrabble, charades, twister, Game of life were saviours on a boring rainy day, and other days of course.
And what would indoor games be without board gamesIJ Remember ludo or snakes and ladders which engrossed us for hours at a stretch and raised the competition levels high. Or carrom and the race for the red queenIJ We found it tough to understand business in commerce class or maths class but learning it had never been easier, thanks to Business. Think about it, our trading skills, buying skill and even investment skills were made stronger with games like Business and Monopoly.
All said and done, it is not too late to try one of these. You may not have the kind of outdoor space that used to be but you can still make the most of it. Who knows, may be you will even make new friends and have a good time.