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The Games I used to Play !!

Last week, thanks to the amazing weather we have had, I finally decided to swing a swing after all these years. It was so comforting, to swing, the cool breeze accompanying me as I oscillated back and forth, the sounds of insects humming, the smell of wet earth and a thousand pictures that went past my eyes of childhood where swinging was a part of routine!!

And I realized there were so many games we used to play with cousins and with friends at school, so here are some of the few games I loved playing-

 1) Dark Room - A game so fun when played with a house full of cousins. Pretty much like hide and seek, except that it is played in the dark :D I have some really fond memories of hiding under beds, between a stack full of blankets, up in somebody's lap or standing right next to the door so as to 'dhappa' the seeker before he could guess me!!

2) Hide and seek aka chupan chupai - A game that one never gets bored of playing. It was always fun to hide because finding things is not fun let alone people. In school during lunch time I and my friends used to play it in the entire playground +few rooms at the ground floors were also part of the boundary. Ispies and dhappa continued well pretty much up to class 10th

3) kho- kho – As far as I can remember there were 2 kinds of it, sitting and standing, where in we had to try to avoid being touched by member of the opposing team. In the sitting kho- kho we arranged ourselves in a straight line, facing in the opposite direction alternatively. The runner and the catcher could run past the gap and and at the ends whereas in the standing kho- kho we were arranged in a circle and the area enclosed by us was the boundary, and the runner would pass the run to any person part of the circle where the game continued.

4) Pick the hanky - girls v/s boys was the common form of game that was played much during school-time.  A handkerchief was placed and we were arranged in 2 teams and numbered randomly. There used to be a neutral person who would shout out the number and each person from the 2 teams(having that no.) would rush to get the hanky back to their team safely. If 'it' succeeds then you get a point or else the opposite team has it.

5) Hopscotch- The layout was drawn with a chalk - 3 single squares, 1 double square, 2 single squares, 1 double square, 1 single square and they were then numbered.There were only two rules-
i) one foot in each square only
ii) Hop over the square with the rock in it.A rock was thrown into the 1st square. Hop on one foot over the square with the rock in it. Land with two feet on the double squares, Simple !! On the second turn, throw the rock into the second square, and so forth.

6) Ice and water or lock and key- a catching game where there was a catcher who had to ice or lock all of us and we would stand still at our positions and the person being caught 1st would be the next catcher. But the others had the power to water/key the person caught and we could start running again. I loathed this game because I would never lock all the persons so I tried that I got caught later so that I don't become a catcher :P

7) Snake and ladder/Ludo- An amazing board game and an all time favorite.  One moment you are climbing ladders on till 90 series and the next moment you know you are off to a start, being hissed by a snake!! such twists this game could come up with.
And as for ludo, it was more fun if it was played in teams where the team reaching home first would win.

8) Cards- Thank God, there is still something that every body agrees to play!! It is actually fun, the whole of your family/friends sitting, laughing, complaining, teasing and the satisfactory faces of beating others and winning. There are so many games you could play- rummy, bluff, getaway(bhabhi), solitaire and loads more.

It was so fun sitting and recalling almost every game I had mentioned. Hope to play them sometime real soon!!

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