A few of days ago, all of a sudden I began to miss my childhood. People who know me well know that it is perfectly normal for a weirdo like me to have such thoughts - so let's not get into that discussion. I was thinking about the wonderful times I had when I was a little girl - when I used to spend almost all free time playing with my gang of friends. And what games they used to be! I am sure today's kids might have not even heard about those.
These games, unlike the sophisticated games of today, involved running around, screaming in excitement, shouting, quarrelling and were thoroughly enjoyable. We fought like cats in the playground, but the next day we were back to friends :) These really installed in us the qualities of teamwork, leadership, and negotiation much better than most of the summer camps of today. Not to forget, it probably gave us all the exercise we needed. And we looked forward to the afternoons so much that I'm sure none of the shows on TV today, if presented to us then, would have kept us back home.
Most of the games of those days involved a maidan, a couple of twigs or a few stones, and at most a rubber ball. What do kids today play and play with? Cricket, football, tennis, table tennis, badminton? Classy huh? What about seven stones? Has any one of them heard about budhiya kabbadi (this game is known by various names - so probably half of my generation has not heard of it either, but it involves two circles drawn on the maidan some distance away from each other, two teams, one team all set to "catch" the other team members, who try to rescue the budhiya in distress - which is another member of the team - in the other circle), or gilhari-mungphali? How many of them might have enjoyed a simple game of kabbadi or kho-kho? There are so many more if we start to list them down.
Where have these games gone? I really think there should be a revival of these, and an effort to bring kids out of homes to the playgrounds. I believe there already is an initiative in this direction, I guess in Mumbai - I vaguely remember having read about it. Would it not be fun? But again, will today's kids enjoy it? I feel we must not be prejudiced – this generation of kids can also be child-like, who knows! ;)
And yes, this must involve not just children, but also grown ups who often miss their childhood and these lovely games, when confronted with other games grown up people play. What say?
PS: Please share the wonderful games that you fondly remember from your childhood! I'm sure all of us would love to refresh our memories!
2 comments:
You got me nostalgic there! Sad but true, how many kids these days play 'dabba ice pice' or 'cut-e-run', an offshoot of cricket which needs just 2 players to begin with.
Umm... Agreed that most kids these days dunno half the games we used to play.
But happily, my neice and her friends in the society play Kho-kho and hide n seek and robbers n thieves (tho it goes by some other name now) and quite a few more.
I found myself very tempted to join in while watching them.
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