Cricket and football. Use of English cricket terms. Each
game has its season. Marbles. The Indian method.
Spinning-tops. Splitting your opponent's top. Kite-flying.
Battles in the air. Final result. _Itte-dhandu_; how played.
The Indian "Tom Tiddler's ground."
Indian children are fond of games, and many Indians, until quite
advanced in life, continue to play games of a nature which are usually
associated with childhood. Cricket has become widely popular in all
the larger schools and colleges, and football also, but to a less
degree. Christian boys of all ages play these two games everywhere
with great zest, and the Hindu boys in their neighbourhood, stimulated
by the sight, follow their example to some extent. But they are
hindered by the scarcity of the necessary apparatus, which costs more
than most Indian boys can possibly afford. If schools and colleges in
England would systematically send their cast-off gear for games,
carriage paid, to foreign missions they would do a good work in
helping to keep young lives in wholesome and happy occupation. Even an
old tennis ball is received as a real treasure by an Indian boy, and
any number of balls would be gratefully welcomed by every mission.
In playing cricket it is almost a matter of necessity that the English
expressions connected with the game should be used, even by those who
know no other English. Out in a village, where English is never
spoken, it sounds curious suddenly to hear from the cricket field,
"How's that?" pronounced sharply and clearly; and then the prompt and
equally incisive reply, "Not out." Wonderful to say, the decisions of
the umpires are accepted with tolerable readiness, except when they
are flagrantly contrary to fact, as they sometimes are. A few of the
politically disaffected students have tried to boycott the game as a
foreign importation, but they have not met with much success.
There is a proper season for all the purely Indian games, and to play
any of them out of season is almost as great an enormity as to shoot a
partridge in England before the 1st of September. If you ask an Indian
boy if he has been playing a certain game, and if it happens not to be
in season, he will look at you with an air of pained surprise, and
briefly saying "No," he will change the subject.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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