So the picture you see here is not only an art or meditation of balancing stones but also a game we were fond of. Consider it as one of the toys we played. Toys in our days were real, made us active and let us exercise more, both mind and body. This little game still help us to shape and balance our lives with persistence.
We played with stones stacked up to make it fall with a ball by one team and the task of the other team was to re-balance the stones back to its previous place with the danger of receiving the ball that ousted them out from the game. And the ball too made up of crumbled paper wrapped with a polythene, tightened with a few rubber bands to give it a firm and circular shape. We even put small pebbles to make the ball more heavy. But that animosity would fall upon us with a hard hit we received on our back. Ouch! The sharp and short pain….Those hand made balls were so precious. But we as small children would lose the ball by accident under the huge stone. Clearly do we remember the pile of balls that rolled down the road like a river when that stone was cut into pieces. But by that time, we had grown up and so were our tiny toys. No more precious… Time change but change is constant. Our toys were stones, pebbles, pieces of colourful bangles that we kept in small bottles as if they were diamonds; marbles and how can I forget the green leaves tied up to form chungis that made our legs hop on each counting.
The circle of rubber pipes, the sticks and steels, the piece of wood with wheels joined on each corner steering down the winding hills winning both pleasure and wounds. Those winter afternoon with gangs of children carrying long bamboo sticks with a mission to strike the leftover oranges from the orchards, one child hitting the orange, others standing in every possible direction, below the mother terrace concentrating on the fallen fruit as if it was a cricket match, sometimes caught, sometimes missed.
We were among those children.
We lived our childhood
We merged with earth…….
Years later….
Caged
I see the children
Handcuffed
Locked inside
The doors, windows and screen
Clean, tidy
Playing virtual reality.
© Timeandreflections.
