Pocket full of Marbles......

Hey....don't get any funny ideas , I really mean the marbles...a pocketful of them. Walking past the unending Ambiance Mall in Gurgaon.......on a Sunday that I had to while away...........I could not but envy the luxuries a modern day child enjoyed with all the amenities....thanks to a whirlwind globalization of this still largely rural country... The kids were having a gala time in that Mall....Pizzas,pastas and subway burgers....video parlors...eats and stalls that one found difficult to chose what with the choices one had on offer.....but there was a difference...I wondered ......do these children ever get to play the kind of games that we got to play as kids and toddlers...leaning on that stainless steel railing my thoughts wandered involuntarily to those good old times....times when I had no toys .....no video games.......but a plethora of options..to play the age old games which seem surely headed for extinction.
I was born into a large family.....my grandfather I am told expired the year in which I was born ( an issue my grand mother would always raise with rancour ....as if the two had any co-relation ,drawing some objections from my mother,which I never understood in those times...he died of a malignant brain tumor I am told) .... they were ten of them my uncles and aunts....five and a five....the elder aunts having got married ..the responsibility of rearing the rest having been rested on the shoulders of my young father and a vibrant mother.

so obviously a lot of economy was professed and every thing was strictly on a need basis.There were no toys and didn't know such things existed...the remotest toy that I played with was one made from a coconut leaf.....well if you did not know how to make I can show you one...or some set of wooden toys passed down in seniority (a toy of chocolate brown wood that looked like an Egyptian mummy).
But there were other games we got to play....what with a big band of brothers, sisters and uncles and aunts that we had...including the neighbors we could easily muster up a team of ten ....most decent game that was encouraged was Nela-banda, a games in which we had one unfortunate fellow who had to chase people standing on either the ground or some concrete surface ..it was much fun as it gave me ample opportunities to jostle with my aunts and uncles and the friendly girls in the neighborhood.....the next most popular game was hide and seek..which some times even the elders seem to take part in ..like on a few occasions I found my location was given away by my grandma with a wink of an eye to one of uncles or aunts....it was her favorite game...possibly the only one she could umpire on ....others being little more outdoor and physical.
There were some games only girls played..Tokkudu billa, or game played with tamarind seeds..chinta pikkalu ...which they threw up and caught deftly with one hand...I suppose what ever they caught successfully they got to keep for themselves....that is when I was subjected to gender bias...when I was told it was not a boys' game. There were some exclusives games we boys played..like climbing trees like monkeys...kotikommachii...where in one bloke kept chasing us on the trees as we moved from branch to branch..it was a game not encouraged by the elders as it would cause physical damage......if we had a fall.

There were two games which were discouraged...but drew my interest....marbles and billam kodu (gilli danda) ...gilli danda was a fascinating game which I could never master no matter how much I tried.... I dint see my son play that game so I suppose it must be existing only in villages and may soon be extinct unless some one started a campaign to save it. It had two sticks one small one ,whose edges were sharpened..called the billam or a (Gilli in hindi for my hyderabadi friends)....and a longer stick the kodu or the danda.one had to first hit the smaller one up in air and swing the larger one like a bat to send the gilli as far as it could...the farther it went the better...and when it was in the air if some one caught it you were out....of course the that was the riskiest part...what with edges sharpened like mini knives. So on one fateful day in the evening I landed up at the house on the tip toe with a swollen eye. The gilli having done its damage from a hit from my stronger friend....The whole household seemed to be descending on me...my mother administering a hot massage with a wet warm cloth, sympathetic cute looking aunts that gathered around to see the extent of damage.....and the condescending running commentary of my strict granny in the background; why she forbade that abominable game in the first place. In those days the real threat came from my granny because whatever my misdeeds or mischievous acts were camouflaged or hidden from my father by the rest of the house hold, my grandmother never pleased with my performance , would give me up like a traffic cop to my dad the moment he arrived home after a day's long tiring work....that often brought admonishes.....more often than not my mother was hauled up for improper supervision of children ..as if it was her only portfolio... while my uncles and aunts exchanged little supporting wry smiles when I was hauled up on such occasions ...I could not but notice the utter satisfaction on my granny's face....she always believed that the culprit should be brought to book. so that was the end of that "Gilli Danda" game for me.

There was yet another game very popular with us kids(boys only)....the marbles. I first noticed them when I began to go to school at the age of five. they came in bright vibrant colors of all hues and shades. The first set of few marbles were gifted to me by a set of generous friends in the neighborhood...they were my class mates ..a set of twins who looked exactly alike....Naushad and Nishad ( I wonder where they are now) . It was an interesting games wherein one had to drop the others marbles in to a pit made with one's heel in the ground by hitting them accurately with a finger using the thumb as a fulcrum. Perhaps that was the first game which i began to fancy and seem to excel in some manner ...as my count went up of my proud collection of marbles...as the game allowed a boy to retain the marbles he won by putting them in the hole..something I would quite feel familiar when I would learn to play golf many years later. The biggest challenge was to hide the marbles from the elders...especially my granny. We had those huge shorts with large pockets...(don't get confused with those cargo shorts of today's children ...they were a far cry from them by any means..at the best they resembled the despicable shorts of the Andhra Police)....so the marbles would make noise....as I ran in to the house....no matter how bets I tried to hide them.....one day one red color marble rolled out from no where.....and my poor granny was almost seemed to have tripped over it (at least that is what she claimed to )..and again the blaming fingers seemed to have pointed towards me....though partly I was covered by my Tom sawyer uncle who was just elder to me by five years......but I was told in no uncertain terms that I should never play marbles in the streets as it an becoming street urchin game. The storm having been weathered I shipped all my marbles successfully to my twin friends possession... they were a decent trustworthy friends who kept my possessions safely.

Those were days when I was studying in the primary School of the village.......I really do not remember how many of us were there in the class...all I remember was the gong that we awaited to go off signaling the end of the school.....the school was more of play than any studies...at least there were no homework nor any exams ..till I was in my third grade. It was to be fateful day..with marbles....as usual I was up to my full prowess..having won many a marble that morning.. my pockets full of marbles..... when one of my friends objected to the Marble I had putt in....that was my first fist fight...being a frail kid I was overpowered..by that non vegetarian eating friend...my shirt buttons torn apart....the huge loose shorts half way down....mud in my face....I put up a brave fight back with what I could..soon the other class mates gathered .....and there was a large congregation of kids and gleeful spectators. I was putting up a bitter fight...having received a few punches...on my face...i started tugging at the hair of my attacker realizing that was my only chance to afflict maximum damage and get even. Then I heard a familiar voice from the crowd.....isn't he your son.....my father's colleague was asking him loudly..... a look of desperation and frustration was unmistakable to notice on my fathers solemn face...as they walked on.....

That was yet another fateful day when it was to be my last day of playing marbles......that evening my father when he reached home took charge of all my elderly uncles and aunts....for not grooming me properly...from then on wards my arrival and departure times from the house were monitored.....and I was subjected to intense sessions of recitations of multiplication tables....what with any mistake translating in to hundreds of repetitions on one slate and a slate pencil............

Still as I gazed from the glittering stairs of that mall I was overcome with nostalgia of my childhood.... I pitied those kids who would never play those games I got to play....no wonder most of them were already overweight what with equally obese mothers pampering them.....