CHENNAI : Childhood is a special time, and those memories that come back to us from the past, stay with us forever. They define us in our relationships with our family, and with our friends. They become a bank almost, of happiness, which lifts us when we are down, bring a smile to our faces, and allow us to remember things we have long forgotten, people we’ve lost touch with, and memories that we will carry forever.
When I started talking to people about how they used to play, as children, I was fascinated with how the approach of every single person was different. Through the lens of those childhood memories, I could literally see the change in both the social, cultural, and the very physical landscape of the city of Madras. Pradeep Chakravarthy, a historian and the author of the book The History of South India for Children, recollects how he used to play Parama Padam, a game that was often included with the Deepavali Malar. I remember from my own experience that it was a much-awaited event and in earlier times, many of these carried a copy of the game of Padma Padam as a centrefold.
Parama Padam is the traditional Indian snake and ladder where snakes represent vices and ladders represent virtues. The effort of each person in their own life to overcome those vices, acquire virtues, and reach Parama Padam is the metaphorical journey in the game. I also remember that older calendars sometimes carried this same game. Pradeep’s Parama Padam, he remembers was used so many times, that it was literally rubbed down to nothing and players could not even read what was written on it. He also recollects with some amusement, a little blue car, that was used as one of the game pieces. For some reason, it was considered very lucky, and the family would even fight over it.
This concept of luck playing a part in games is recalled by Ranga Kumar, who is a counsellor with the Cancer Institute and runs a palliative care centre at VHS. She talks of her excitement in playing the game of Pandi or hopscotch and how she would run to school to get a few extra hours of play with her friends. She remembers with deep amusement, how she used to kiss the little flat tile called a chill, before tossing it in the hope that it would bring it luck. Preparing the tile was almost a preoccupation in itself. Flat stones or tiles from broken bathrooms were taken and rubbed on the floor to make them smooth rounded and flat, perfect for feet to hop onto and guide through the maze that was Pandi.
Shylaja Chetlur, an actress, filmmaker, and entrepreneur who runs the Cinema Rendezvous club, grew up in Chromepet had numerous humorous tales to share. She recollects playing a catching game that included climbing trees and being reprimanded by her mother as she had grown up and was not meant to climb trees anymore.
Shylaja seems to be a bit of a tomboy growing up. She talks about the game called Mudugu Puncture, which was a variation of this simple game of 7 stones which many of us used to play. She, however, laughs when she narrates the fact that one normally got people out by throwing the ball and hitting their legs, but with girls running about in pavadais, it became rather difficult. The idea was to hit people with the ball on the back and thus was born the variation of Mudugu Puncture. It was this kind of fond memories of family friends and good times that everyone recollected.
Vishwanathan Anand who has wowed us with his chess moves told us, “I have played many, many games. We grew up in a time when we didn’t have infinite choices, but we were very, very creative in playing games and inventing games and making up rules.”
He went on to talk about playing just for the sake of playing, of having fun. “You played a game when you happened to meet somebody, who was interested in that game, and then you just grabbed the chance to play it. There was no question of trying to improve or measuring something. We just played some games with the same bad strategy with such joy over and over again.”
Priya Murle, the Bharatanatyam dancer remembers with mischievous joy how she would get annoyed when she found older cousins trying to exclude her and simply “kalachufy” the games, scattering game pieces and ensuring they couldn’t play unless they involved her. Over time they did involve her, and she recollects many, many fun memories of playing together.
Amar Ramesh, the well-known photographer, also recollects the pleasure of playing with cousins on his grandparent’s farm — plucking cashew nuts there and devising games with the fruit and the nuts. He has wonderful memories of unfettered play. He recollects playing gully cricket, a term that has virtually become a game of its own, on the empty streets — a truly simpler time, when everything that mattered was the game. One thing almost everyone reiterated was how many friends they made and how it helped them build stronger bonds with family through play and fun times. In fact, Sabita Radhakrishnan, a textile conservationist, an author, and the force behind the NGO Udhavi to help senior citizens, made a call to an old friend, Jagadeeshwari, with whom she had played many happy childhood games. When Jagadeeshwari heard it, she was moved to tears; they spent a happy phone call talking about old times. Such is the power of joy and happy times.
Play was very much a part of our lives and looking through the lens of these memories, one of the things that seems to have changed a lot is this breakdown of not nearly the joint family but the extended family, of time and place to play and the sheer unstructured unsupervised fun of playing.
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