8 Forgotten Childhood Games That We Need To Revive Before They Are Lost Forever

Those were the days that we thought would never end. The days of being young and naïve and not having a care in the world. However, as we grew up we somehow forgot how much fun we used to have back then. Now-a-days kids just seem hooked on to their gadgets but they really don’t know what they’re missing out on. The joy of going outside and playing random games with your friends is something else altogether. Here are our favourite games from our childhood that we bet you totally forgot about!

1.       Chain or as we call it Saakli.

This game consists of a ‘denner’ who has to catch all the other players. Once he catches another player, the said player also becomes the denner and hold hands with the original denner in an attempt to catch the rest of the players.

2.       Langdi

We obviously love our ‘pakdam-pakdi’ but when the traditional game got boring and monotonous we invented our own variation, one which involved hoping around on one leg looking like a chicken!

3.       Hopscotch better known as Stapoo

This game involves drawing a pattern of boxes of the floor after which you throw a small object into one of the numbered boxes. The player who throws the object then has to jump through the boxes to go retrieve the object.

4.       Pittoo

Pittoo or seven stones was widely popular through-out South Asia. It consisted of a stack of seven stones and the aim of the two opposing teams was to break the stack and build it up again before getting hit by a member of the opposing teams.

5.       Oranges and Lemons or Poshampa

Two kids stood together making a makeshift bridge and sang a song. Whoever was under the bridge when the song ended and the hands came down would be trapped and was considered out.

This is to jog your memory.

Oranges and lemons, sold for a penny,

All the school girls are so many!

The grass is green and the rose is red,

Remember me when I am dead-dead-dead-dead-dead!

6.       Vish-Amrit a.k.a Lock and Key

There’s a denner who has to go catch the other players. As soon as the denner catches a player he is infected with ‘vish’ or poison and cannot move until one of the other players on his team touches him and gives him ‘amrut’.

7.       Four Corners

Each of the four corners of a room is given a name and the aim of the game is to choose one of the corners of the room and not get caught. The denner will pick the corner when the music stops and all the people standing in that corner will be considered ‘out’.

8.       Lattoo

Lattoo is a wooden top which has grooves in its lower half and a nail at the bottom, on which it spins. Don’t you remember having lattoo competitions as a child? The child who’s lattoo spun the longest won!