OUR CHILDHOOD GAMES IN KGF

Childhood in K G F was blissful. We had no luxuries like the present generation but never the less we were happy with simple pleasures and entertainments.

There was a huge open ground or ‘Maidan’ behind our house and all our friends would join us there to play after school and on holidays and weekends. The games we played in childhood were Hopscotch or Butch, Football, Throw ball, Spinning Tops, Rounders, Seven Stones, “ L O N D O N”, ‘I Spy”, Running and Catching, Robbers and Police, Kabbadi, Kho-Kho, Gilly Danda etc and many other simple games. Cricket, Hockey and Tennis were also part of our repertoire of childhood games.
Kite flying was another exciting game for us. Besides having a lot of fun flying our kites, we had a lot of enjoyment making the kites ourselves with Broom sticks or Bamboo sticks, kite paper, newspapers etc. We’d make a paste of flour and water to stick the paper to the kite frame and then settle down to make the Manja. Making the Manja for the kite string was a well kept secret. The “Manga” is a mixture of glass pieces, flour paste etc which is smeared on the kite sting to make it sharp, so as to cut the strings of other kites midair.
Besides all these above mentioned games, we also played our favourite childish games of Police and Robbers, Doctor and Nurse, Hide and Seek, Running and catching and of course the very girly game of ‘House House’ We had a lot of pots and pans or ‘Chapus; for this game. The Chapus were either made of mud, metal or plastic and we had tea parties with the dolls, cooked over our little stoves with our pots and pans, and hosted dinner parties with the dolls and teddy bears. We also played a number of board games like Chinese Checkers, Ludo, Chess, Drafts, Bagatelle, etc These games are indigent and native to India, but nonetheless played by us with much enthusiasm
All these games seem so outdated now. Apart from playing Cricket, Hockey, Tennis etc which are part of the School games curriculum, Children hardly play outdoors nowadays. Instead, they play with high tech video games, play stations and other fancy gadgets and I’m pretty sure they don’t experience the same capacity of happiness and the joys of the simple and inexpensive games that we played as children.
We really enjoyed our childhood!!!