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We, the infants toddled and prattled through the verandas and compounds, picking whatever came on the way, generating gleam in elders’ eyes. Childhood bagged special attention practically nil from the guardians since the children were not the kind of spoon-fed category. We availed of more freedom than today’s children, who are entangled in over-parental care. And so we could be much more independent and self-reliant.
Mostly the children used to get up before the Sun came with his long sticks to wake them up. Divine qualities such as obedience, discipline, honesty, affection, etc tinted with sincerity and hard work ornamented the villagers and so also their children. Therefore a wind of unwritten law and order blew everywhere spreading the scent of simplicity.
Boys and girls though had their separate modes of amusements and recreations, not many games segregated them. Recreations through gaming were stealing the hearts of children and hence their life during vacations sought grounds outside their abode for sports. So hardly had we formed any group or team, for playing together was the pattern followed.
Olichukali(hide and seek), Adichechottam (beat and run), King(catching and ousting a child from that round of the game), Kuzhippara(stones and pits), Kallukothu(juggling-picking stones in the gap of another stone thrown up), Thakku(throwing dice to jump on that without touching the columns drawn) and many more were among the games.
Vattu(Marbles), Kuttiyum- kolum(a primitive form of cricket), Kite-flying etc filled the little male minds with thrill abundant. Little magical hands of girls gave life to various things as toys and playthings. The raw materials like leaves, nut-shells, paper-bits, rope-pieces, cords, strings, even mud, etc. amazingly, got shaped into chains, snakes, balls, crowns, cross belts and the like. The blindfolding game was also much sportive. Balls-from the market as well as those made from the Coconut leaflets-had played a major role in games. Chasing butterflies, dragonflies, watching antlions and ants and their kineses and the such were some other kinder games.
We, the children were architects of the first order as we designed and constructed temples and buildings(both bungalows and huts). We used sodden soil, twigs, coconut- stalks, shells, leaflet-midribs, etc. for construction and also we ornated our real estates with multi-coloured blooms. Sometimes we turned to be expert chefs cooking food with soil, leaves and flowers. Coconut shells were the wares, we used in our play- kitchen.
Dancing, singing, one-act plays also had engaged the little minds at times, no matter they were of the accepted pattern or not. Fights and quarrels(mostly verbal), inherent or in-built in children's nature, had no dearth there but lasted not so long.
Summer vacation, the Mango season, was indeed the most spirited time. The thought of waking up at daybreak and running to the mango trees to collect the maximum number of mangoes occupied the little minds while going to the bed, the previous night. Sporting in vacant harvested paddy fields energised us to a greater degree.
Summer rains sometimes bathed the Earth in heavy showers and rainwater blanketed the whole terrain to the fullest. We, the children either remained home idle or engaged ourselves in some indoor games or galloped to the flowing water with paper boats. But the thud of falling mangoes induced vigour in us and then within no time we were under the mango tree. Grandma’s winnowers became umbrellas in children’s hands when it rained. Sticks jumped into grandma’s right hand whenever she understood about the missing winnowers.
Every house had one or more ponds that invited the children to play with. Jumping, Diving, Swimming-direct, upside down, sideways, backwards etc. were some of the games designed for our hilarity in the pond. Sometimes some plantain stems appeared in water for paddling games. Counting with a little bit of cheating by one person for another remaining under the water was carried out smoothly. Of course, an ample amount of pulling and pushing were the spices that made the water art interesting. This fun went on endlessly till some elders voiced angrily and loudly.
At the age of five itself, all the children were at the track of swimming and not even a single child was there without having had mastery over the skill of swimming. Bath towels will become fishing nets when two children hold the towel on either side and dip under a shoal of fingerlings to fish them. And eventually, snowy white bath towels would have been dyed in a brown or black hue in similitude with the mud colour of the pond.
[to be contd.]
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