It is said that childhood days are one of the best times in our life. This is indeed quite true. During the ‘golden days of life’ , the only tensions were not to get scoldings from parents and teachers and secure good marks in examinations. Apart from that, life is totally blissful and is surrounded with vivid joyful imaginations of fictional world and non-fictional world. The fictional world comprises of the characters children see in books and movies and the non-fictional world comprises of things they see in the surroundings around them with their own little innocent and curious eyes.
Let us rewind back to the 90’s era. During those days, when we were very small, there were no smartphones to keep us hooked and entertained. We enjoyed being outdoors and played various kinds of games our little minds could have come up with in the days long ago. Our days were spent with studies, reading Harry Potter books, watching cartoons like Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Tom and Jerry, Dexter, Pokemon etc. (I miss them now). And of course playing games with the ever beautiful Mother Nature listening to our shouts of thrills and fun as we enjoyed playing our planned childhood games .
London Bridge
London Bridge is falling down, My Fair Lady…. Two children of opposite groups would say these words in a sing-song voice and after capturing one of their fellow players would ask him/her to choose one of the groups. After all the children were captured and the respective groups were choosen, the groups pulled each other. The efforts used by both the team to pull together along with shouts of thrill were quite entertaining to the passers-by. And when one of the teams fall down, laughter would ring in the air . Moreover, this type of game helps in promotion of team spirit.
Blind Man
Now, this was the game, we as mischievous children quite adored. The child who was made the blind man was jeered and teased so much as he/she tried to catch the playmates. The sounds of laughter, teasings and hinting directions to the ‘Blind Man’ made the game a fun-filled one.
Statue
This was the best game the young minds have devised to keep themselves entertained when they were tired and were not in the mood for physically tiring games. Just say ‘Statue’ to your playmates and watching them trying every possible means to keep a stationary position gives us a kind of inner pleasure. The fun was doubled when you disturb the playmate with every kind of trick imaginable to get him/her moving.
Hide & Seek
Now this is the best kind of puzzling game devised by the genius minds of children. One child was made to count till ten or twenty. During the period of counting, we as children used to hide in every kind of nook and cranny we could find . When the seeker finishes counting and continue to rack his/her brains to find us, we would secretly enjoy our time ourselves and enjoy the puzzling reactions of the seeker.
Doctor Doctor
For the young medical aspirants of yesteryears, this was one of the best games they enjoyed as children. The toy medical cases were used to play this game. The so-called sick children in the game would say ‘ooh and aah’ in a dramatic manner and the so-called doctor would try to wear the most serious expression that they could manage.
Hopscotch
This challenging game required us to hop in one leg to the right box that was drawn on the ground. Now even if this was a fun game, it made us concentrate harder to maintain our balance in the box with only one leg. When we reach the place where two boxes were drawn together, it made us heave a sigh of relief and relax ourselves. This game was risky, fun and one that requires much concentration.
Skipping
Skipping was never so much fun when we used to do it alone. But when two of our friends used to hold the two ends of the skipping rod and allow us to jump to our heart’s content, our joy knew no bounds. The children shaking the rod and bringing it up and down might have thought the one who was skipping to have lose their sanity as jumping with joy reflects ‘our happy feelings’ in the face when we skip. It was one of my favourite childhood games way back in the 90s.
Chain Chain
To break the chain and gain freedom from the ‘ child hand jail’ was quite a difficult task, but when our efforts to break it is fulfilled, we sing our freedom of escape in our thoughts and bask in the glory of winning. To tell the truth, we used to feel like a champion for having been able to escape from the chain.
Electric Shock
Electric Shock – one of the best strategy to devise a game of running and then stopping that have planned by children. Saying ‘Electric’ makes us run and saying ‘Shock’ makes us stop. This type of game was a good way of stretching out the muscles of our legs during childhood and also made us concentrate harder to make sure that we run faster to prevent from being caught by our opponents. Similar versions of games were named as ‘ Lock & Key’ where ‘Lock’ means Stop and ‘Key’ means Run. The 90s children were really awesome to think of games like these.
Crocodile In The Water
This was also a game basically meant to tease and jeer at the child who was made ‘Crocodile’ to catch his/her friends. The ‘Crocodile’ had a hard time trying to think which of the children he/she should catch as there were calls from almost everywhere and the jeers keep ringing in the ‘Crocodile’s’ ear. However, when he/she manges to catch one of his/her friends, then his/her heart erupts with joy.
No matter what types of games we played in our childhood, it was definitely one of the best times of our lives. There are so many authors who have captured the imagination and feelings of children in their works. Many poets have also eulogise ‘childhood’ as one of the best periods of life through their poems.
You May Like-
