Blog 9 - Childhood games

Back in the day, we had a lot of time to spend time with our friends. These friends were aplenty and belonged to different categories: school friends (classmates), ‘bus/ train friends’ (you met them during commute to school and they could be senior or junior in age), ‘colony friends’ (these lived in the same colony as you but went to different schools), ‘tuition friends’ (may be from same or different colonies but came to the same tuition), ‘street friends’ (even ‘back-street’ or ‘side-street’ friends!) who were a subgroup in the colony friends but since they lived very close you your house, you were allowed to go to their homes and play. We even had ‘vacation friends’ (those who lived in other cities/countries and came to visit their grandparents or uncle-aunt during vacations). Depending on who it was and where you met them, there were several game options to choose from and have nonstop fun:

Board and card games

Usually, our immediate neighbor’s kids (part of street friends’ group) on either side of our house were the ones we used to play board games with. Especially during the summer vacation, we used to get a long break of 2-3 months and would spend hours at our neighbor’s house. The house to the right side of our home had kids much older than us - I think they were teenagers when I was in primary school, and so they would pamper me and my baby sister well. It is with them that I learnt how to play carrom, rummy, bluff and other exciting games. Sometimes, they would all lose on purpose, so we could feel happy about beating people much older than us! 😉

The house to our left had kids my age and some of them in this mix were my ‘vacation friends’. We would spend hours solving puzzles (250 pieces) that they would bring from abroad or play games like: ludo, snakes and ladders, ‘Business’ (monopoly), ‘name-place-animal-thing’/ ‘raja-mantri-thief-police’ (games on paper), ‘nondi-kaal’ (hopscotch), or even spin our ‘bambaram’ (top). Once, my friend’s uncle even taught us how to play Pallanguzhi- a game from his childhood, which he found in their attic while cleaning!

Pretend games

These games were of many types and worked well if we were only 2-3 kids playing at a time. We all had good imagination and would pretend to be doctor-patient or bank man (cashier) – customer going to withdraw money (we used to make fake cheques with our notebook paper), and even shop keeper-customer. But the most popular pretend game was doctor-patient-nurse (nurse character was included if there were 3 instead of 2 kids). To make matters interesting, we would pretend the patient was a mental patient! Of course, no one wanted to be a mental patient and we had to do the ‘sha-bu-three’ to decide who would be what! For those who do not know, ‘sha-bu-three’ was Indian version of rock-paper-scissors 😊

Once, when I was playing the doctor game, I found my grandfather’s syringe (he used it for his daily insulin intake) and to make our game realistic I poked my friend’s arm with a real needle. The poor boy started crying and bleeding instantly and ran away to his mother, who came back in 5 seconds and threw a fit. It took my mother a lot of apologizing to convince the lady that I was not a serial-killer in the making. Still in character of a doctor, I even got him a band aid and was proud of my (acting) improvisation skills. After 2-3 min, he was back to normal, but his mother was naturally very upset for many days after that! Guess who got scolded later by my mother for leaving a syringe accessible to a child? My baffled grandpa!

Street cricket

The most fun game of all times! We would make stumps with sticks and bails with small sticks/light rocks. Mostly, we used tennis balls instead of the cork balls as most of the time many of our younger siblings would tag along, wanting to play and we didn’t want them to get injured. Personally, I have been hit by a cork ball once, above my eye. Most painful experience ever!

We would make teams if we were even in number and the eldest would also double up as an umpire. If we were odd in number, the umpire guy would refrain from playing. Usually I would be the only girl among a group of boys, but they were very inclusive. In fact, my friend C would teach me the right technique of holding the bat, educate me about different fielding positions and talk about the importance of the weight of the bat. He even taught me how to hit a good straight drive!

We had different rules for 4s and 6s since we were playing on a street and not in a ground. If the ball went all the way to the end of the street, it would be 6 and 3/4^th length (we marked it before match with a rock), then it would be 4. Whenever a vehicle would pass by, we would quickly remove the stumps and move to the side of the street to give way and resume play as soon as the vehicle passed. Usually we would choose afternoon time to play to have minimal disturbance due to traffic. And yes, if someone hit a window by mistake, the rule was drop everything and run back into our homes and not be seen until the coast was clear (usually would take around half hour for the houseowner to come out, shout in vain, give up and go back indoors)!

Shuttlecock

Another popular game, this was played between 2 or 4 people (doubles). Usually the older kids in the colony had good bats and we would go and request them to lend us their bats for few hours. They would gladly oblige and if they were free, they would also join us and play a set or two, or just watch us play and teach us how to serve. We had shuttlecock made of feathers when we played and few years later, I was surprised to see plastic ones in the market.

Be it cricket or shuttlecock, we would usually make the little kids do the fielding or running around to fetch the ball/shuttlecock and hand it back to us. They would also be enthusiastic and run around happy to just be included!

Book/bus cricket

What does one do when they do not have cricket bats or ball or are not even in the street or a ground and yet wants to play cricket? Simple, play book or bus cricket. A long book/exam pad would become the bat, a crushed paper would become a ball, 5-6 feet of space in the class room or school bus would become the pitch and match would go on with full excitement and fervor!

We have now moved on to play station, Wii, Xbox and VR, which are also exciting and interesting in their own way, but I think the charm of our childhood games will always remain in our hearts!