Games People Played

I am 52 years old. And I am from India.

Both these information are relevant to this blog.

My generation has probably witnessed the greatest transformation in how we as individuals and a family, spent our leisure time.

Today, on those rare weekends when the family is together, the following are how we are engaged.

I explore the possibility of going to some mountains or for a bike ride with my friend.

On the rarest of the rare occasions, the family goes to the mountains together.

If it is biking, I am on my own.

Usually however,

My wife spends her time in the kitchen, or the garden or connecting up with friends through whatsapp and facebook. 

My son, would use the excuse of holidays to sleep when the others are awake

and stay up all night while we sleep.

My daughter would be tuned into her laptop, watching some unwatchable shows and listening to elevator music.

Me, I will be moving about, getting on everyone’s nerves with my misplaced wisecracks, and end up reading or watching comedy clips on YouTube.

When the family ends up something together, it is one of the following three.

Watch a movie.

Go on a holiday – visit new places.

Play Scrabble.

When I was young, the choices of what to do in our leisure time were multitude. 

Surprisingly, even the leisure time was plenty. 

The distractions were less.

We had no TV, no internet, no malls, no multiplexes.

The TV entered the homes in the early 80s and stole the leisure time.

It reduced the conversations at home. 

The only time the members of the family spoke to each other was when they had to fight for changing the channels.

In the beginning, even this was not happening, as there were no channels to change and most TVs did not come with a remote.

Subsequent home invasions like internet, connection of internet at home, first through dial in connection, then with modem and finally with wifi, smartphones and cable TVs totally obliterated any family time possible.

Nostalgia is addictive, as strong as opium, and I take a trip down the memory lane.

When I was young (remember I am 52 today)

Every day, after the school, we played.

When I say, we played, I mean we the kids, went to the playground and played physical games.

Cuts, bruises, dirt, dust, torn garments, broken nails and damaged equipment were the norms.

The games that we used to play are all now part of folklore.

No one, at least not in urbanized areas, plays them anymore.

A top, marbles, balls thrown at each other, hop on elaborate patterns as complex as crop circles.

I shall not spend time on elaborating them as they were all games the kids played.

My starting point was how the family spent its leisure time.

The first that comes to my mind is a game called “Thaayakattam”

My grandmother was the champion in this game. This game could accommodate 4. So someone usually waited for their turn when one game ended. My grandmother was a constant participant. The game was almost like chess, with some chance thrown in, but once the chance part was done, it was left to the player to marshal his/her resources with cunning, strategy and deception. My grandmother was a serious player. Gone were her gentle demeanour and kind words once the play started. 

She would shout, holler, hurl expletives, plead with Gods, curse her own grandchildren with fate worse than death, accuse others of cheating, play the poor me card to perfection and in extreme situations (read as close to losing) end the whole game with her matriarchal authority and sulk for a period of a full three minutes after which a fresh game would start again.

At times, the games stretched endlessly and theoretically it is possible for the game to continue till eternity.

Shakuni  from the epic Mahabaratha was an accomplished player of this game.

In the early days, we drew the pattern on the floor with chalk, and later laminated patterns or some exotic cloth versions were also available. But nothing could equal the patterns drawn on the floor.

The second was the family favourite “ Paramapadam (literally God’s feet) aka Snake and ladders”

Unlike the previous one, this did not have any limit on players. You could play with as many as you wanted. It just needed a distinct piece that you could associate with the players. Coloured stones, chessmen, carrom coins, cowry shells , seeds…. 

This was actually a two-in-one. It was not just a game, but also a Moral Instruction class delivered at home while you play. 

The ladders that helped you climb were all virtues, like honesty, faithful, pious, generous etc. The greater the virtue, more rungs to the ladder. Honesty may help you ascend two rows while pious took you seven rows above. 

And the snakes were the sins. Jealous, greed, envy, anger, etc. The same logic again, greater the sin bigger the fall. I do not remember the exact name of the snake, or its associated sin, but this blasted snake rested on square close to 100 on a game with the final square at  132. And this brought you all the way down to square 2. 

Must be a real mean snake or a damned sin certainly. 

With its tone of piety thrown in, each square was attributed to some God form or other, the cursing of my grandmother was restrained while her pleading to Gods were exponential.

The third was a game called “Pallanguzhi”

I do not even know what to call the main part of this game. 

It was not a board, nor was it drawn on the ground. It was a compact foldable wooden plank, often shaped like a fish, and it had 14 cup like indentations, arranged 7 to a side. 

This game was also quite a complicated one. I am not sure if I remember all the rules. It was played with cowry shells or tamarind seeds if the family was less affluent. The person who started first had an advantage. There were some patterns that could be repeated to give you a winning start.

The last of the family game I recall is the one that involved cowry shells. This needed dexterity, as you did some "Matrix" like manipulations with your hands and fingers.

There was yet another game called Trade. A diluted version of monopoly. The grandmother never participated in this. We bought cities, built homes, collected rents, in short we were transformed to the heartless capitalists for the duration of the game, sucking blood out of proletariat like a leech. My father was usually the banker. Years later we learnt that he was giving money to one of my brothers on the sly. No wonder he won most of the times.

Years later when I moved to Bombay, I knew all the parts as I had bought them, built homes and collected rents when I was a kid. Thus Dadar was always cheap compared to Zaveri Bazaar, though by the time I moved in, both were out of reach, to even live in.

The death of my grandmother happened before the TV invasion and sadly most of these games died with my grandmother.

With my grandmother gone, and an ever absent father, constantly on travels and a mother who was happy to cook or sleep given a choice, the three brothers still managed to keep a tradition of games at home, played together.

Chess, Carrom and playing cards.

These games are playable today too, but the drama and fun part of the above mentioned games are gone forever.

In 2004 or about, I bought these games from a fancy shop in Madras, selling “traditional Indian games” at an obscene price, thinking I will reignite the magic of those golden years.

The wish remains a dream till date.

Readers of the blog, closer to my age, please mention some of the games that you played in your childhood, if you feel like, that is lost today. Let me compile these games. If for nothing, at least for records.

Make an ass of u and me

It was circa 1994, when one of my new colleagues, Amitava Chatterjee introduced me to the concept, “When you assume, you make an ass of u and me” 

I was addicted to wordplay and I loved it the first time I heard it expressed thus.

This was, naturally, a discussion on technical matters. We were constructing a fish-bone diagram. The most trusted tool in technical matters to cover your ass, a presentation, conceived and constructed, to convince the management that we were right on top of the things, that things are absolutely in control.

If everything were to be in control, you would not need to construct a fish-bone diagram in the first place.

😉

The underlying message was, do not assume, look at data objectively, without prejudice, and do a thorough analysis to find the real cause.

It was common then, and even today, 23 years later, to see qualified persons making the cardinal error of confusing cause with effect.

I was so much impressed by the simplicity of the doctrine, that for many years I had this poster on the wall behind my desk, in my office.

As years rolled by, and with salt overtaking pepper on my cranium, I realised this is so much true to the social life as much as it is relevant to technical matters.

No. Make it more relevant to social life.

I have been a witness to brothers not on talking terms, parents distanced from their own children, broken marriages, destroyed friendships all due to this single malaise, assumption.

I like to compare it with cancer; just as it is invariably always too late when you diagnose cancer, so it is with assumption.

You may identify the assumption part, but never be in position to cure the damage caused by it. 

As with cancer, the effects are terminal, irreversible.

Before I try to explain the malady, as I see it, in current world, let me take you to another aspect of this problem. The powers of assumption have been harvested to its fullest by one of the most evil types to walk the earth; the manipulator.

The manipulator understands the powers of assumption. A manipulator is essentially a person who likes to control. A person with no interest in power, has no interest in manipulation. 

Feed the gullible with the well formulated manipulated manifesto, and Voila, the person is your slave forever. And what is more, you have successfully distanced two individuals.

Let’s start with M (a manipulator) playing the game of manipulation, using the tool of assumption, on an unsuspecting duo A and B.

In most cases, M, A and B are reasonably close to each other to start with.

M drops hints to B about “certain” things that A mentioned about B. It is always with a preamble, “please do not misunderstand me”, “I am actually embarrassed to even talk about this” and “for heaven’s sake do not go and ask A” and “please let this not change your behaviour to A” and the final twisted barb “maybe I misunderstood, do not take my word, you be the judge”

The basic human nature is thus, of all the options that are available at disposal, the one option that B will never do is talk openly to A or confront A and M together.

B starts viewing everything that A says with suspicion, jokes cease, doubts increase, absolutely normal occurrences take on monstrous hues. 

B loses the ability to smile and be normal. Driven to edges of paranoia, B starts imagining malaise where none exist.

Now is the time for M to approach A and start “am concerned about B”, “B is reacting too strongly”, “it is not possible to be casual with B around” and “you would not believe, just the other day B said….”

Both A and B feel they are obliged to M as it was M who brought the “disturbing revelations” that they were unaware of.

As A and B grow distant, become more formal, M basks in an achieved glory of staying close to both A and B, now separately, and feeding them the periodic fodder to foster their insecurities, rendering them a phantom anchor.

M achieving the “divide and rule” strategy will never work if A or B resort to the most logical and obvious of the options available to them, but 10 times out of 9 <😃> A or B or both will “assume” the worst and move on and apart.

Why M does this remains a mystery. The gains are insignificant. As a matter of fact, the “gains” whatever they are, are possible and much easier to reap in a collaborative atmosphere. If the “end” or the “gains” are not the main drivers, then the only possible aspect I can ascertain the behaviour of M is the “need to control” and the “obsession to stay in control”.

M likes “authority” and is never comfortable when the authority is questioned. 

Or when perceived as questioned.

In a convoluted way, I would stretch the theory that M uses “assumption” as a major tool, with cocksure certainty that the two being played with will never cross check and will always “assume”, probably on the “assumption” that M’s authority is being questioned.

😁

To a neutral observer this will never make sense. 

People throughout the history fed on this insecurity and the “assumption gene” to achieve their ends with minuscule efforts. 

Be it Hitler and Goebbels spreading rumours about Jews to gentile, a white supremacist branding blacks as filth, people of one religious faith spreading suspicion about another in any communal riots, the Christian inquisitions, the persecution of any minorities, the lynching mobs, the list can go on………..

Having spent, a considerable amount of, time on one off-shoot benefactor of the malady, the M, let me now get back to the basic evil itself.

I reproduce a paragraph from earlier on, to relate to it, instead of making the reader scroll up to refer.

(It makes my blog longer too <😄>)

I have been a witness to brothers not on talking terms, parents distanced from their own children, broken marriages, destroyed friendships all due to this single malaise, assumption.

Do the estranged brothers not look back?

Do the disillusioned parents not cast a forgiving eye in their autumn years?

Can the couples completely forget all their glorious moments?

Does not a friend revisit the good old free years, at least when totally inebriated?

All of them do.

But they all do with a vehemence that is frightening.

The adage “Time heels everything” falls F.L.A.T. here.

If the assumption is not blown to smithereens at the very first instant, it is already too late.

The intervening years only cement it harder, making it impassable, an ugly past forever stored away, never to be retrieved.

Like an old excel document that was saved with a, now forgotten, password.

The longer the separation grows, the more impossible it is to repair.

The growing sense of dread, “it happened once, what is the guarantee it won’t happen again?” combines with the most unpleasant sensation of “if I break the ice, the blame of all these years shall come to rest on me” and I give the other the chance to gloat (another assumption) “we wasted these many years due to your stupidity and pigheadedness” never will allow to mend one’s way.

One seeks comforts in such spoken wisdom “a broken glass can’t be fixed” “a crumpled paper never regains its crease” and yada yada yada

As a writer I have a responsibility to conclude. I am not one of the recent species of authors (books and films alike) I am frequently coming across who thrive on leaving a story open ended. 

What is one expected to do? 

“Assume” an ending? Compare with other idiots who do the same? And then enter into an argument as to which of the “assumed” ending is correct.

😃

My conclusion:

Relationship by its basic nature is fragile. It needs to be nurtured, cared, tended and loved. It is not a plastic toy immune to disintegration. On the contrary, it is too fragile. 

If you want a relationship, start slowly, invest time, let it grow in its own pace, let the mango ripe in the tree, don’t try to ripen it by plucking it raw from the tree and burying it in a container of uncooked rice; and once the acquaintance and association blossoms into a relationship, let not even Armageddon try to shake it.

Mistakes are normal. 
Errors occur. 
Manipulators prowl. 
The best laid plans, often, go awry.

But what kills the relationship is assumption.

I “assume” I have been explicit.

Till death do us part

Couples who do not love each other are abnormal.

Couples who do not fight are even more abnormal.

We love, we fight;

We laugh, we cry;

We argue, we agree;

We splurge, we scrounge;

One likes music, the other reads;

One likes outdoors, the other is stretched on the sofa;

One likes the sunlight, the other has vampire blood;

One is hooked onto movies, the other sleeps the moment the lights dim;

One likes women, the other likes men;

Who likes who could make a marriage more interesting.

😛

We begin by being physically attracted to each other.

Then we learn to love each other.

We can’t stand separation, however small.

We delight in small pleasures.

We bask in important achievements.

We earn

We save

We own

We grow

We settle

We stabilise.

We become parents.

We struggle to understand our children.

We understand our parents better through our children.

On many things we disagree.

We all pass through a phase where everything that was once attractive, is now a matter of dislike.

What made you smile now makes you scorn.

The surface is scratched, and what you find underneath is not what you expected to see.

Then, as fog clears with rising sun, this phase also passes by.

The cracks heal, the scratches disappear.

You learn to accept and not be judgemental.

In the end

In the long run 

The marriage that is successful is the one 

In which the two learn to know how to respect each other.

Dedicated to two of the best couples that I have been blessed to get associated with who celebrate their anniversaries in the coming week.

Happy anniversary my friends.

Being the private people that they are, I shall not name them.