Monday, November 23, 2009

"Man, don't get mad"

This is the English translation of the German name of a game, every child in India knows about... ok.. maybe not now.. since they have Pokemons and PS3s now, but until when I was a child they knew about it.

It was the game everyone thought they were best at. According to Wikepedia, "cheating and catching others cheating is an integral part of the play. " And many of us would probably remember the game for that only. It was not a game, it used to be "Men at War". Hours and hours of continuous play between the four camps of red, green, blue and yellow. Choosing which colour counter you would play, was in itself was big debate. For me, mostly it was green, since I belonged to that house in school. Others also had similar crazy reasons for their favourite counters including superstitious beliefs about which colour wins for them.

Then there was this eternal shout of "Much"!! I still dont know what that meant, but it signified a pact to freeze the competitors move, so that he cannot retract or change moves. This happened when the other party perceived a positional advantage in the current move. I dont know whether they use this signalling technique in other parts of the country/World.

This is one game that has the status of a sport and very popular next only to cricket. This is one sport where age and size dont matter. I remember playing tournaments with my uncles and aunts.

I remember, many years ago, when our schools were closed down for months due to curfew, and they were demolishing the Masjid somewhere, I was busy killing non-green counters of my friends and foes at a game, we all love as LUDO.