When the Mall Road was our playground
In absence of any sports complex, Shimla’s iconic road was one children’s favourite spot to play cricket. Now digital screens have taken away these childhood joys
There are nostalgic remnants of a childhood blissfully undistracted by smartphones, days spent on Shimla’s Mall Road. For us kids, this grand colonial structure was a makeshift playing field.
For children growing up in the nearby homes of Mall Road, middle and lower bazars, there was no separate sports complex, or playground. The playing fields were scarce, and the options even scarcer. So, we claimed what was available — the Mall Road and the Ridge. Sometimes it was pithu, sometimes pakdan pakdai, but mostly it was cricket. Balls were chased without fear, and rules invented on the spot. Risk was just a theoretical concept, and broken glass merely an occupational hazard. Our rule book was as creative as our geography. A ball crossing that shop was two runs, reaching the next stretch earned four, but anything stuck beyond a certain sacred point was not a glorious six — it was declared out. Because past that limit lay practical consequences: a lost ball, shattered window or trouble we definitely did not want.
Two well-built, tall policemen, used to patrol the entire stretch with dignified authority. Their warnings to us not to play were firm, frequently repeated and entirely ineffective. We would nod respectfully, scatter for a while and return when they became out of sight.
One unforgettable afternoon, our makeshift wicket, an electric pole, witnessed sporting history. In a moment of overconfident heroism, the bat struck not the ball but the showroom window of Kiran Drycleaners. The crash was indeed spectacular, followed by silence and the realisation that the match was unofficially abandoned, and the parents of the concerned batsman were funding the repairs.
The Ridge stands as open as ever, yet the laughter that once bounced off its colonial facades now competes with glowing screens and silent scrolling. The mall road still carries its elegance, but the echo of bat against glass, the breathless chases across colonial cobblestones and the unstructured joy of children claiming the streets as their field, feel like relics of a free time —mischievous, imperfect and wonderfully ours.
Lokesh Rana, Bilaspur
