I find my daughter of six often online at Barbie dot com (well wrote it like that cos If I use the ‘.’ Dot followed by the com u will get the HTML link and hit upon Barbie dot com and never end up reading this blog) would try to dress up a Barbie or feed a Barbie or … or arrange a date for Barbie with that bloke Ken…
the nearest I got to a date was my date of birth.
The games we played when I was a kid were very seasonal and we used to religiously adhere to it.
There was a kite season, there was a kalanggol season (the most interesting game I have ever played, will go on to explain it), followed by the marbles or alleys or (Golli in tamil) season, The Top Season (bambaram in Tamil) the cricket season, the hand cricket season and during winters the book cricket version for indoors. Imagine a IPL kinda extravaganza for book cricket....
Lemme go on to give a ‘How to Play it’ briefs on all of the above.
The Kite season
One needed to be a professional at this and I was not one, but was an ardent follower of this game and knew all the jargons.‘Deal’ was to enter into a direct aerial conflict with your opponent who was a couple of buildings away, the victory or defeat depended on how strong the coating on your thread was, the ‘Manja’ that would do it… each one had a secret recipe for the manja the ingredients I was told ranged from Glue to finely ground glass or bulbs to add strength... kinda glass reinforced coating... but believe me, that was some serious cutting edge technology.
The Kallanggole Season.
This follows the kite season after the finances have dried up for the funding of Kites,thread and manja, venture capitalist were not around those days…..
The funda was to use the remaining ‘manjad’ thread and test its strength with a stone tied to its end and try and cut your opponents thread…
The Marbles or the Alleys Season
This game has its roots from the colonial days. Here's a list of some common marble terms to get you started:
• Mib/Kimmie: One of thirteen 5/8" marbles placed in the center of the circle.
• Shooter/Taw: The marble that the player flicks toward the target mibs. The shooter must be more than 1/2" in diameter, but not over 3/4" in diameter.
• Knuckling down: A player must have at least one knuckle touching the ground while flicking.
• Flicking/Fulking: While knuckling down the shooter is flicked by the thumb out of the players hand.
• Alley: A marble made of marble. Alley is short for alabaster.
• Bombsies: Dropping your shooter on the target marble.
• Keepsies: Playing for keeps. You get to keep all the marbles you win.
• Lagging: A way of choosing who shoots first. Players roll their marbles toward a line in the dirt (the lag line). Whoever gets closest without going over gets to shoot first.
• Plunking: Hitting the targets on the fly.
Well I just got to know all of them recently in English but I can relate to each one of them with a terminology we used in the local parlance then.
For more info on the game marbles (golli) chk out this link
http://www.kidsturncentral.com/topics/sports/marbles.htm
I don’t intend writing much about cricket cos most of you know this game. The only stuff I would wanna write abt is a version of the modern day run outs we used to follow then, called ‘current’. The ‘current’ concept was that you touch the stumps with any, yes, I meant any part of your body with the ball in hand and if the person is short of the crease is then declared run out. Well ICC cld take a cue from this.
Will be continued on request... cos only a very niche audience can identify with this.
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2 comments:
Hi Geoji,
How could u write a blog which has marbles as a sport and not explain the concept of "Jaan". Remember the phrase "naan Jaan pillai aanallum Aan pillai".
As part of my request I have 2 street sports which we were masters of while growing up in the streets of what is now an up market colony called Besant Nagar, the Gilli Dandu and the 7 stones most commonly known as "Mudhu Punkcher"(puncture) pronounced in its native slang. Believe you, me, I have played all the mentioned street sports in your blog at the School campus of one of the most prestigious of Anglo Indian Schools in Chennai in those days.
Hey Geoj,
Enjoyed the nostalgia bit - I can surely relate to all of it cuz while you were ruling the streets of besant nagar, we trying to keep the flags high in TVMR - so pls continue, am sure many more will joun. I gueess now you can really call public demand with the 2nd one to comment.
Maybe after uve completed the street games, Im sure will graduate into the Adult games....I meant the famous "3 Cards" - where we had our good and bad times making fortunes and spending it at the corner shop!
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