GAMES IN INDIA
Cricket and football. Use of English cricket terms. Each
game has its season. Marbles. The Indian method.
Spinning-tops. Splitting your opponent's top. Kite-flying.
Battles in the air. Final result. _Itte-dhandu_; how played.
The Indian "Tom Tiddler's ground."
Indian children are fond of games, and many Indians, until quite
advanced in life, continue to play games of a nature which are usually
associated with childhood. Cricket has become widely popular in all
the larger schools and colleges, and football also, but to a less
degree. Christian boys of all ages play these two games everywhere
with great zest, and the Hindu boys in their neighbourhood, stimulated
by the sight, follow their example to some extent. But they are
hindered by the scarcity of the necessary apparatus, which costs more
than most Indian boys can possibly afford. If schools and colleges in
England would systematically send their cast-off gear for games,
carriage paid, to foreign missions they would do a good work in
helping to keep young lives in wholesome and happy occupation. Even an
old tennis ball is received as a real treasure by an Indian boy, and
any number of balls would be gratefully welcomed by every mission.
In playing cricket it is almost a matter of necessity that the English
expressions connected with the game should be used, even by those who
know no other English. Out in a village, where English is never
spoken, it sounds curious suddenly to hear from the cricket field,
"How's that?" pronounced sharply and clearly; and then the prompt and
equally incisive reply, "Not out." Wonderful to say, the decisions of
the umpires are accepted with tolerable readiness, except when they
are flagrantly contrary to fact, as they sometimes are. A few of the
politically disaffected students have tried to boycott the game as a
foreign importation, but they have not met with much success.
There is a proper season for all the purely Indian games, and to play
any of them out of season is almost as great an enormity as to shoot a
partridge in England before the 1st of September. If you ask an Indian
boy if he has been playing a certain game, and if it happens not to be
in season, he will look at you with an air of pained surprise, and
briefly saying "No," he will change the subject.
Indians of almost any age play marbles, and there are many divers ways
of doing this, the rules of which are clearly established by an
unwritten tradition and are strictly adhered to. If a disputed point
arises when a company of boys are playing, an appeal to a senior
bystander is always conclusive. Games between experts are watched with
interest by quite a number of lookers-on, of every age. The Indian
method of shooting a marble is to use the middle finger of the right
hand as a sort of catapult. The marble is held with the left hand
against this finger, and bending it back, it is suddenly let go. The
effect of this is to volley the marble with great force and accuracy.
The English boy's method is tame by comparison. The prevailing
gambling instinct finds scope in this game, because the marbles are
generally kept by the winners, and experts amass great stores. Some
schoolboys, with a money-lender's disposition, make a fortune by
selling marbles cheap to small and inexperienced boys and then
promptly winning them back again.
Spinning tops is an amusement of which the Indian boy never grows
weary, and he only leaves off regretfully because its season comes to
an end. If he has nothing else to do he will be happy spinning his
top, on and off, from morning until nightfall, and naturally grows
skilful in the art, although, if he has no companion, it does not
admit of much variety. His chief exploit is to scoop up the top while
it is still spinning, on to the palm or back of his hand, or on to his
arm. But there are exciting contests, when one boy endeavours to spin
his top with all his force on to the revolving top of an opponent,
because if successfully accomplished the defeated top splits. A
scarred veteran sometimes becomes quite an honoured hero from the
number of its victims.
Some of the tops are of the roughest description, made by the village
carpenter. More finished ones can be bought in the native bazaar for a
farthing. But often a hopelessly disreputable-looking top, with an old
nail for its spike, has a better record for deeds done than a more
showy one bought in a shop. Those that are spun with the view of
splitting their opponent often have, instead of a spike, a flattened
bit of iron like a little chisel, which the boys sharpen on a stone,
and with these they do great execution. Sometimes somebody's foot is
seriously wounded in case of a miss-fire. Now and then, for a change,
a boy will play with a whip-top.
Kite-flying amongst Indians is an exciting sport, quite different to
the tame amusement of merely seeing how high a kite will go. The
Indian kites are nearly always quite small, made of thin coloured
paper pasted on to a frame of very slender wooden splints. The better
kites are made of paper of several different colours tastefully
combined, and often decorated with gold. Strong thread is used, of
which the enthusiastic flyer has a large store on a wooden roller,
which he intrusts to some small confederate who pays it out or takes
it in as required, and is proud to be allowed to have this share in
the sport.
But the real purpose of Indian kite-flying is to do battle with
somebody else's kite up in the air. You have to try and so manoeuvre
your kite that its thread crosses that of your opponent, who may be
stationed quite a long way off and out of sight. He on his part will
try and avoid you and get the upper hand himself. In the hands of
expert flyers the contest is most exciting. Crowds will gather and
watch the result with intense interest. The kites dodge, and rush
upwards, and dive downwards, as if they were alive, and the fight
often goes on for a long time. The thread is doctored with glass which
has been pounded into fine dust and mixed with gum. This gives the
thread great cutting capacity, so that if it fairly crosses that of
its opponent, by a dexterous sawing movement the thread is cut, and
the liberated kite sails away on its own account.
Then follows intense excitement amongst the crowds of onlookers far
and near. The kite, without the support of its line, soon begins to
flutter downwards. It is an established tradition that it becomes the
property of the person into whose hands it falls. The original owner
is rarely able to get near enough to secure it. Its zigzag course
makes it problematical where it will fall. Generally those who think
they are going to get it are disappointed by a final flutter, which
takes it out of their reach into another pair of outstretched hands.
Not unfrequently nobody gets it, because it is torn to shreds amongst
the many hands held up to grasp it.
Some schoolboys spend on kites, during their season, every farthing
that comes to them; and kites can be bought from a farthing upwards.
They have not a long life, even at the best of times. Frequently they
get torn by the wind on their first journey heavenwards, and a torn
kite can rarely be repaired to much purpose. Flying competitions on a
large scale, with substantial prizes for the winners, are organised,
and attract crowds of spectators. The competitors are for the most
part men, some being of mature age. It is a wholesome and entirely
harmless form of amusement, except for the betting which takes place
at the big contests.
There is a fine game called _itte-dhandu_, after the names of the two
pieces of wood with which it is played. It is a little like tip-cat.
The _itte_ is a rounded bit of wood 2-1/2 inches long and perhaps an
inch in diameter. Sometimes the ends are made to taper, but experts
say that this is not correct. The _dhandu_ is a stick of similar
diameter and about 15 inches long. It is a most exciting game, with an
elaborate code of unwritten rules. It can be played by any number of
persons from two onwards. The whole field is kept in constant
occupation, movement, and excitement. I have in vain tried to get some
one to commit the rules to paper. While the game is in season there is
no anxiety about how to provide for the wholesome amusement of
schoolboys, because they play it in every vacant interval, from early
morning till they go tired and happy to bed. But directly the proper
season has ended, the game is dropped till the next year. One of its
many advantages is that almost any jungle will provide wood from which
the _itte_ and the _dhandu_ are easily shaped with a pocket knife.
A game, not unlike "Tom Tiddler's ground," is very popular, chiefly on
moonlight nights, amongst men and boys. It is often played in the
streets of cities when traffic has ceased. The ground is divided into
squares, either by scraping boundaries in the dust, which lies thick
in the streets of a native city; or else at night by pouring water
along the lines, which makes a very conspicuous mark on the dusty
surface in the vivid moonlight of the East. This childish game is
played with great delight by people whom you might think were much too
old for such amusement, and it nearly always forms part of the
programme of any village festival.