Can we play?
Come lets play. !!!
So familiar these sizzling baby questions sound and bring back chirpy memories of childhood. The child and play are two sides of a golden coin. Play is the child's first lesson of social life...and this lesson starts from the first moments of awareness for the babe in the crib, and it stays with him all through his growing years and later takes the form of matured games of an adult---but all through PLAY, teaches, thrills, relaxes the whole system of the mind and body.
Simple games of childhood that at one age needed nothing extra to make it a game, has in this modern age taken a very technical outlook---all our childhood play with pebbles, mud and twigs has changed into hi fi games of Lego, Power ranger guns..Nintendo and the list goes on and on. Our children of today have no idea what charm and magic lay in our simple plays of mud and sand..under trees in summer afternoons. What was that tremendous thrill of our games and plays that till today send ripples of childish excitement through our nerves even now. I often remember my play sessions with my cousins, friends classmates and it feels so good to know that all those with whom I enjoyed my games they too remember those very days of our enjoyment together.
Hide-n-seek, Blind fold,Seven stones, Land or water,The farmer's in the den, I spy, seeing marbles roll in dusty play fields or the name goolli dunda....do these games now seem base and low before our modern games played in air conditioned rooms with highly modernised video games and electronic boards? may be so....but then the magic of those old games surpasses all in thrill and fun. .......memories of these games bring back such carefree days of childhood and it is quite a time pass today to relive those memories.
Sitting back on lonely quiet evenings I often indulge in letting my mind wander in those happy days and our games together and unknowingly a smile dances on my lips at the memory only. Of all the common games then, the one that stands out as uncommon, was a game that we had named "Black Out'---it was unique in its category of excitement and thrill and the more the players the merrier its fulfillment.
What was it ? --well, I can say it was Hide-n-seek and "I spy" combined; the novelty of it was that it was played in the dark...not out in the garden at nights..but was played indoors at night, in a room all closed and lights put off. No restrictions on the number of players...the bigger the number and the smaller the dark room the merrier would the game be. So you can imagine what the chaotic thrill would be with ten to twelve of us stuffed in a small room and that too, we would choose the room with closets, linens and mattresses to add to the confusion and make our hiding more easy...and very much to the annoyance of grandmother at home.The game would be set usually after our dinner was over, and of course yes,after home work was done.All of us would get into the specified room with lights on....we would decide by lott as to who would be the spy and do the searching and the rest of us would hide. The spy would stand near the switch board with eyes shut, counting till 100 while we would quickly in hurried hushes hide under mattresses or linens.The count would get over, the spy would switch off the light and then would start the thrill.The hushed excitement with hush hush whispers and suppressed giggles from us in the darkness was a thrill that you must experience to feel it. The only sound in the abated breath filled air of the room was the spy moving and groping in the darkness with outstretched hands like the blind trying to get hold of anyone, be it just a part of the dress of even a strand of hair. The shuffling and giggling amongst us to dodge him was the best part of the game, breathing over her shoulders and then gliding away in the dark....and to be caught by the hair or dress and then pulling ourselves out of the clutch without letting out a single squeal for him to catch on, was the peak of excitement. The tussle then, was the real game...the spy would try to run her hands over our hair or nose our ears to be able to spark of any recognition and before being caught we would just vanish in the pitch darkness of the room... if she failed the lights would be switched on in the midsts of our shrieks and laughter, while the spy would again go to the switch board to start on the count again.
Today as I think of those screaming Black-out games, my heart just yearns to run back over the years and find all my playmates to come and play another game in a dark room. Gone are the friends, gone is the house where we had our dark room, nothing is left to fall back on, but the memory is so strong that in this modern world of toys and hi tech games, our game of Black-out stands supreme in its simplicity and untarnished enjoyment--it still seems to beckon us over the years....."Come lets play". !!
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