Ballpark Figures
After two decades of procastrination, one habit that I am finally trying to get into now is some physical excercise every evening (OK, wipe that smile off now, I only said I am 'trying'). So, in order to feel like I've done my health-conscious deed for the day, I make a little trip down my apartment near DU to this small neighbourhood 'colony park' where I practice my intense fitness regime.
More interesting than the two-count jumping jerks (it always sounded like "jumping jacks" on the loudspeaker when our physical education teacher used to make the whole school do this before morning assemblies during winters) and the toe-touching (which I barely manage with the edge of the nail of my middle finger intersecting the curve of my big toe just about tangentially) are the sights and sounds that I see in the park everyday.
There's a tree on which no less than five peococks live, all of whom descend on it together at 5:56 PM everyday (believe me, its quite a sight). There's a family of monkies which stretches out and relaxes at the end of the day near that tree (I mean the actual animal here). But what is most amusing to watch is the group of little kids who play and run around like crazy all evening in the park. Watching them play, fight, argue & shout while I pretend to be in the middle of some callisthenics has provided me fascinating insights into organisational dynamics, division of roles and power structures even in that group of kids, which is a great reflection of how we act as adults.
The bully (or the guy who does major dadagiri) is the easiest to spot. He even looks slightly bigger, usually wears black and talks the loudest. He always has a sidekick, (the loser) who has no sense of identity of his own and derives all his confidence from his status as the official armrest of the bully as the latter orders around the other kids. While this happens there are always these two girls who stand at the corner and share their disgust with each other about the bully's behaviour in English. They always seem to be more fluent in the language than at least the bully (whose dad probably runs a flourishing business in Karol Bagh, but has only done a B.A. pass course and hence has limited linguistic abilties in foreign languages).
Then there are a couple of kids in the group who are out there only because their parents want them to go out and play everyday. They personally hate physical activity, don't really have the confidence or the motivation to make themselves heard in the group and usually get out on a duck. They hence, spend most of their time fielding on the fence and occasionally bowling a "baby-over" or two or throwing an odd "try ball" as the 'captain' takes a water break. (My guess is most of them grow on to become engineers from NSIT.)
The other interesting thing about watching these kids is that after very long I am hearing words and phrases which had ceased to be a part of my everyday jargon long back. It's amazing how some words and heuristics have still remained the same as they were about twenty years ago and have possibly existed for many decades even before that, despite the kind of exposure to technology and media that these kids have.
Pukam-Pukai is still the preferred way to identify the seeker (or the den or 'denner' as we popularly call it in India). However, if someone joins the game late the seeker is spared of the agony of running around alone with the supeceding rule of nayi ghodi, nayi chaal which penalises the newcomer by making him the seeker straightaway still (come to think of it, its not a bad way to ensure compliance - everyone would try to be on time this way).
Games like Vish-Amrit, Oonch-Neech-ka-Papda (as a kid I used to think there were some racist undertones about this game) and Chhupan-Chhupai (in which the den always cheats by skipping numbers or counting only multiples of ten when he's supposed to count from 1-100) are still as popular as they always were. And the kid who owns the stumps when they play cricket is suddenly reminded that his mother had asked him to come back early that day and finish his homework the moment he gets out even now.
It's incredible how much has remained exactly the same about kids now and the time when we were all 2 feet tall like them..... And then when we grow up, I am not sure what we do wrong with ourselves that we find their routine activity fascinating enough to be able to blog about it.
