Toys that were out of the ordinary

JAIDEEP is a 10-year-old boy whose father promised to buy him a gift of his choice after the final examinations. The boy passed with credits and wanted a video game. He got it. But I wonder why it is called a game. There is hardly any activity involved in it. Well, things have changed, maybe for the better. But you can’t deny that childhood is a period of joys, toys, games, freedom — everything except responsibility.

Some 90 summers ago, I was a child too, but there were no toys then. You played with whatever came to hand — a dish, a spoon to make music, a piece of rope or your mom’s shoulder. If you liked, you made your own toys using wood or straw. Making a money box was the easiest thing; the important thing was to ensure that the slot was big enough to allow a paisa (the largest coin) to slide through.

The most strenuous activity involved a wheel (pahiyaa). Whenever a quick errand had to be done, I would take out that discarded bicycle rim. If the occasion demanded it, we would collect small strips of looking glass and assemble a kaleidoscope to create magic figures with pieces of broken glass bangles.

Simple pleasures came from feeding a brooding hen and watching her eggs hatch, one by one. Watching the whole brood of 10 or more fluffy chickens and interpreting her tick-tick as signals for food or danger would send us into raptures of delight. One day, my father brought a huge sky-blue egg which he had found under a berry tree. It was a peahen’s egg. We placed it among the eggs that the hen was sitting on. What excitement it produced when we watched the slightly larger chick grow into a peacock and in about three months hop onto the wall and fly into the surrounding foliage.

Time flew and my son inherited the playing genes. One day, we went to Goindwal Sahib, a well-known religious place on the banks of the Beas. He saw a baby tortoise and put it in the pocket of his shorts. He would proudly display it after school, and our house became known the ‘Turtle House’. The boy learned all about the care of his new ‘toy’ and I loved it too. He was a bit depressed when he lost it, but the boys on the street spotted it near the stormwater channel.

My son hardly ever demanded any traditional toys, though I did buy him a fancy model of a tractor, without his asking for it. But the boy exchanged that with a heron, which left him at the first opportunity. The tractor was gone and the bird had flown.

Once, I saw him haggling with a snake charmer, whom he had given a taka (two paise). The fellow wanted an anna for letting the boy wrap a python around his neck. A modern-day child, if shown a serpent, would perhaps look for an opening to insert batteries!