Games We Played Part I

         Skimming through some old emails, I came across a chain of mails where I am exchanging notes with a friend on our childhood and the games that we played back then. And as I read my thoughts run back to the fading memories of my childhood. I can't help but get sucked into digging the recesses of my memory for all that I can remember from 'back in the days'.And today my search criterion is 'games that we played'.

        My fondest memories of games played as a kid growing up in the concrete suburbs of Mumbai (then Bombay) would have to be of "Chappal-ton Tennis".  Not a game many would know but in the cooperative housing society that I grew up in, it was more than just known, it was played and yours truly was probably its Most Frequently Played Player.  It was a simple adaptation of lawn tennis: wearing rubber slippers i.e. chappals on our palms as racquets and hitting a rubber ball (occasionally a tennis ball) on a rough concrete badminton sized court. More often than not we played it bare foot. I remember days during our vacation (especially the first day) where I would be on the court for hours while the opponents kept changing.  That evening generally had me eating dinner by moving my mouth to the plate/hand. The right shoulder and elbow were too sore to move even an inch. The soles of the feet used to be sore too with the running on the un-smoothened concrete which in the hot afternoon sun was scorching hot. It brings a smile to my face as I reminisce on the game that thrilled me.

        Vacations also brought in the season for marbles. There were a couple of games we played with marbles.  I am struggling to remember the names of the games but one involved us rolling the marble into a hole before we are allowed to use the finger like a catapult to hit the other marbles away. The other involved hitting marbles out of a triangle or circle using the fingers like a catapult. The released marbles were your prize. I remember that we used to use a larger marble i.e. if we had one called dupper (or something like that).

Talking about marbles, my mom reminds me of how I once stashed my marbles in my dad's office briefcase and how he had marbles bouncing all over his office cabin the next morning. My childhood is generally devoid of stories of mischief but bring in marbles and Mom has one story to narrate. This time my teeny pockets overflowing with marbles in church.

       Evening times brought a lot of running & catching games like Chor-Police, Langadi, Sankali, Hide & Seek, London Statue, Kho-Kho both the sitting and standing versions. The games of badminton, volleyball, bicycling, underarm box cricket, lagori, gilly gilly etc. were also played. Maybe I should enlist memories of each game and document the rules just in case our kids decide to  move away from their 3 inch playgrounds of violence and solitude and discover the joys of running and playing.