Sainik School is known for Games and Sports . We did play a lot of organized games like Basket ball and Foot ball in the regular games period. But the much looked forward to games period lasted for just about 40 minutes or so, and the day had 24 hours; too long to be spent sleeping or studying.
Boys are boys, as they say, and mind you those were the days when computers and video games were unknown. Even a humble transistor radio dishing out film songs on Vividh Bharathi was not accessible and regular sports items were not available other than during games period. Necessity is the mother of inventions and everything from sticks and stones or regular use items like buttons and slippers were marshaled to invent a plethora of games.
Of course Kabbadi was the best game to play which needed no equipment at all. But it required a number of players. There were many major and minor games that could be played by two to ten players, but I’ll restrict myself to three unique games we played; Snake pit tennis, Slipper cricket and button – carrom. I know the names themselves must be sounding outlandish though we never really referred to these games by any name as such.
Amaravathinagar was infested with snake and scorpions . In the senior houses , every house had a knee-deep , rectangular shaped snake-pit or trench at the main entrance to keep the crawly creatures away. It is a different matter that the snakes were more scared of the boys than the other way around. It was not uncommon to see a disciplined squad trooping along the road for the evening prep ,suddenly breaking ranks to join a hunt , when one of those reptiles is sighted off the road. A snake can never outrun , or may be out crawl the boys and generally ends up stoned to death. Other unfortunate creatures in the campus that were hunted down were lizards, scorpions, tadpoles or the most popular Pon-vandu (metallic wood boring beetle in English)
Coming back to snake-pit tennis, it involves two players taking positions inside the pit on opposite sides, having first cleared the pit of scorpions if any. The net is formed by the flip flop slippers that is generally taken off during such games. A tennis ball , generally bald and worn out , is hit with bare palms in table-tennis fashion. The score is also kept like in Table Tennis and one could go on and on , the whole Sunday.
Button – Carrom is a simple indoor game played on the mosaic tiled floor . Buttons of assorted colors and sizes are used as coins and a button from the rain coat is plucked out to be used as the striker. The game starts with the ‘coins’ thrown on a tile so that all coins fall within the area of a single tile. Since there are no pockets, just hitting a button out of a tile was considered good enough to earn the coin. The catch was that each button was to be hit without disturbing any other button. Coins were given values based on its color and size.
Slipper cricket was played in the Shoe-room in the junior houses. A tennis ball is hit with a flip flop slipper worn like a glove on one hand to form a ‘bat’ . Bowling was done under arm and the opposite wall was the boundary. A hit on to the opposite wall without touching the floor qualified for a six. For anyone following only the sound from outside it would seem like a lively game of squash. This was a game very hazardous to the health of window panes and tube-lights ; so generally one had to keep a watch for the warden.
There were many such improvised games , I am sure each batch would have come up with new ones or improved on the existing ones.
This account may give an idea that it was all fun and frolic at the school. Nothing could be far from truth. Inspections were scheduled generally on Mondays ; which could be dress inspection or house inspection. A dress inspection meant working on the shoes and brass buckles of the belt ,for the whole Sunday, till you could see your face on it. House inspection meant removing every speck of dust from every nook and corner, to be inspected by the whole hierarchy from house-prefect to house master before the final inspection by the Principal on Monday.
My adult avatar says, these whole gamut of improvised games only served to mitigate the existential suffering faced by young boys cooped up in dormitories , away from homes, away from civilization for five long months at at time.
Whatever be ,while recalling, it does sound we had a hell of a great time, after all.