September 21, 2015 - 10:59
Growing up in a typical 'joint family' system, with the children of four uncles, I was never short of a playmate. We were eleven cousins and eleven different minds, with each contributing in devising a new and unique form of play. I can not help but feel an ineffable pang of nostalgia as I remember many a days spent writing and rehearsing comedy plays, which we later performed at sunday family dinners. More to my embarassment, dance performances set to the tune of Bollywood songs also come to mind, with special lighting effects produced by adeptly swtiching the living room chandelier on and off. On the other hand, we were also busy creating our own wrestling wring. Inspired by World Wrestling Entertainment, we all took up different personalitites, embodying not only their mannersims, but also their fighting styles, getting rough yet knowing which 'moves' to shy away from. Bored with this, I remember, going around the corners of our huge house, concoting 'potions' with crushed leaves, cleaning liquids, and the citrus juice from the grapefruit tree, the fruits of which were used to create what could now be termed as emoji craft, something we would set up for sale on our 'weekly fairs'. These fairs, held in the drawing room, included many inventions and innovations including a human play land, with older cousins being bumper cars and us paying them for rides. Thinking back, there are various other forms of play that come to mind, but most importantly comes the realization of how these activities taught me and enriched my childhood; they harboured creativity, outlined profitable business ventures, and gave us the confidence to come up with these bizarre ways of playing and then showing them off to every adult we would come accross.