The Afternoon Pastime…

I was brainstorming for almost an hour to come up with a topic to tick today off my 21 days of blogging challenge. Finally, I reached almost a decade back in my memory lane to reminiscence about the game that I used to play with my friends while at school. I doubt, whether it could be called a game technically, because it was more of a gamble.

The rules of the game are simple and there were only three of us. Ganesh Karthikeyan, Madhan and I. We each chose a group of vehicle individually. For example, Ganesh chose Jeep modelled vehicles and Madhan chose Tata made vehicles and I chose vehicles of the automobile maker Maruti.

Every day after having lunch, we three used to stand in the corridor and start counting the vehicles going on the road. I mean, if a Zen or an Alto passes then I take a point and similarly if a Bolero or a Qualis passes, then it’s Ganesh. And this count was cumulative, we used to remember the counts for days together till once for all we lost interest in the game.

I remember winning the game thanks to the popularity of Maruti cars. That was actually weird pastime to think of now, but it was so interesting then. Fortunately, our school was located on the national highway connecting Nagercoil and Trivandrum. So there was never a problem about the number of cars every day. But the counting window was limited and there were some good ethics in our game. A car is never counted even if one of them raises a doubt about it. Like if someone was not sure whether the vehicle that passed us was an Indica or Alto then it was not added to anyone of us. Similarly if one of us was not present then there would be no game! We three were so close to each other and this game made us even closer. It was not just counting of cars. We used to stand staring at the road from the third floor of our school building. We spent most of our lunch intervals on the corridor counting cars. There were times when we also used to play during the 10 minute recess.

I know that there is nothing so amazing about the game and you probably even started wondering whether this game requires a complete post dedicated to it. May be only the three of us will find something special about this game! But I am damn sure that this crazy game of us will bring a smile to your face making you remember your pastime at school.

So I’ve successfully got another lead which I could make use of till I get bored of my school day memories which I don’t think I will. More of my school day adventures are going to feature here in the coming days.

A sneak peek of what is in the pipeline – My first speech in elocution – Acting in a drama – Gangs of Morton School – The lier in me – UFO freaks – and many more.