Keep those games alive!

Children are inventive, original and very messy. As they get older they start losing these nice qualities. Some manage to hold on. This is what I am trying to do with this blog. My brother - a great inventor of games - kept most of my childhood happily occupied with his original games. This blog started out as a way to keep those games alive. Do read the first few posts to enter his wonderful world. Reader contributions welcome :)

Friday, October 20, 2006

My mother went to market...

Again, this one's a contribution by Bharath... (Bharath's mom, really). I have so many by him that he is a co-blogger on this site now!

When you have a bunch of kids visiting, this game is guaranteed to keep them all in one place! Have them sit in a circle, placing hands palms down on the floor.





Pick a GameMaster. The GM starts off by reciting, "My mother went to market to buy me some ribbons. What colour did she choose?", while ticking off each finger on the floor. One finger for each word in the recitation above. The person whose finger the GM has stopped at names a colour. Say "Green". Or if you want to be smartie pants, "Light Green".

GM continues along the fingers, spelling out the colour. The finger that the GM stops at is folded, and is no longer in the game.

The person who gets to fold all their fingers first wins. Then you can continue playing until there is one loser or start a new game.

As my intelligent readers have no doubt fathomed, the challenge here lies in coming up with a colour that lands on their finger! And a challenge to the GM is to decide if colours such as Orangeish Purple are permitted...

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The 'tag' game

And I'm 'it'.

Tried to put it off for as long as I could, but
Adi said 'please' and you can get anything out of me if you say please. Especially in italics. There, that's already one thing about me. Now for 7 more.
Why 8, I wonder? Why not a nice round number like 5 or 10? Possibly to alert the subconscious of the 'Eight wonders', or 'The Mysterious Eight' (think Mandrake) and thereby get to the ego of the tagged, all subconsciously, of course. See, this can't just be any old 8 things - they have to be something so unique that people will gasp. So getting to the ego is important.

OK, I'll stop rambling. 7 more, right? Here goes:

When I was 12, I came out a circus crying because all I could think of when I saw the animals performing was 'How Cruel'. Came home and wrote an indignant letter to the newspaper, which never got published. Possibly because I used the word 'torcher'.

The fact above may have led you to believe that I am a great animal lover, have pets, and will pick up any dog/cat on the street. You could not be more wrong. While I have shed many a tear for the abused animal, I have never ever picked one up. For some reason, that is something I can't do.

I just finished hand stitching a cap for the kiddo.

The fact above may have led you to believe that I am an accomplished seamstress, and like
Sunshine, can make my own clothes. Again, you could not be more wrong. I can't sew a dress to save my life. Fact is, sewing is a stress buster. I get into a sewing frenzy every once in so many years, when I need to de-stress. I don't do it knowingly, I realise after a sewing bout how light I feel...

So that's done, right? All 8 facts done? No? Have always been bad at counting - there's another fact for you.