Hide and seek with childhood

"8..9..10...ami aschiiiii ebar... Shreya dhoppa.." (8..9..10...here I come Shreya gotcha) And just like that, one fine morning, we all stopped playing 'lukochuri (hide and seek) with our friends and started playing 'lukochuri' with our childhood innocence and carefree lifestyle.

- RUDRANI SANYAL

Yes, in this fast-paced world plagued by many social evils, we are crumbling under the excruciating pressure of constantly striving to be better in the workplace, college, school or just in life. We have long left behind the good old days when our weekends started with this simple sentence, “Kanamachi bho bho jake pabi take cho” (blindfold chase). Let us take a moment out of our busy lives to reminisce about all the childhood games that remain an integral part of our growing-up journey.

One of the most well-known games of our childhood was ‘rumaal churi’ (going around a circle), named after the handkerchief (rumaal) with which it was played. 5-7 of us assembled, making a circle, facing inwards with our hands at the back and waiting for the thief to place the handkerchief in our hands. If we were the chosen one, we had to catch the thief before the thief took our place in the circle. It feels surreal now, thinking about how a simple frayed handkerchief used to become a magical portal to unending joy for us back then.