It was six o’clock in the evening. The sun had started going down the horizon, setting the sky aflame with an orange hue. The crisp evening air was slowly setting in, as dogs shivered and curled up to form cosy little balls of fur as they slept.
My friends were standing still, breathing heavily, all eyes trained at the small pile of precariously perched stones. It was standing so innocently, almost indistinguishable against the grey tar of the road. Sometimes their eyes would flicker back to me, as I stood a little away from the stones, tossing and catching a small squishy ball. After creating as much suspense as I could, I narrowed my eyes, took careful aim, and threw. The ball flew through the air, and a split second too late I realised that I had applied too much force. It struck the pile of hard and the stones scattered haphazardly. Squealing loudly, I ran away as fast as I could as all my friends simultaneously sprang into action. And thus, a new game of pitthu began.
The natural consequence of ten-year-old girls playing pitthu was a lot of high-pitched noise. This drove our neighbours absolutely wild, prompting us to change the street we played on every day. But every evening, without fail, we forgot our worries about homework and schoolwork, and immersed ourselves wholeheartedly in our world of pitthu, kho-kho, hide-and-seek and countless other outdoor games.
Playing with my “colony friends” every evening was such an indispensable part of my childhood that I cannot even imagine how life would have been without it: the eager waiting for the clock to strike five; calls to each other to fix the place of meeting; the quick gulping down of a glass of milk and waiting impatiently for friends to finish theirs; and yelling out the name of said friends (who were somehow always late) from below their apartments. The thought that we might have been rudely interrupting the much-deserved afternoon siesta of the numerous uncles and aunties in the building obviously failed to cross our minds. How different our evenings would have been without the daily and downright exhilarating rush to run and play and squeal like there was no tomorrow!
You hear about children longing to grow older and to become adults; unknowingly and innocently wishing for a life they think is better than the one they are being forced to endure. But I do not actually remember wishing to grow older. On the contrary, I remember clinging onto those precious moments of my childhood for as long as I possibly could. The older didis in our colony would spend their evenings strolling around, rather sombrely, in our eyes. We would glance at them with utter disdain, swearing that when we reached their age, we would still be running around freely and laughing ourselves hoarse. But, as it turned out, as we grew older, we became those very didis that we had sworn not to emulate. People changed, priorities changed, and time no longer seemed as vast and endless as it did when we were rushing out of the house to play after a long day at school.
Whenever I look outside my house now and see children playing, I am immediately plunged into nostalgic childhood memories of our pitthu-playing days. I remember the carefree sensation of the wind rushing through my hair as I gleefully dodged an oncoming ball and then rushed forward to pile up the stones, still under enemy fire. And the sweet relief of the post-play gulping down of ice-cold water. When my friends and I talk now, our conversations often meander towards the good old days, and we excitedly make plans to play pitthu whenever we all meet again.
I wholeheartedly agree to these plans, even though sadly, I somehow know that they might never happen. But I cannot help but smile at how our memories are so strong and so fond, that we still craft these plans now, more than ten years later. I may not play pitthu the same way again, but I am thankful for these memories that have lingered on for so many years.
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