Article by Manan Mushtaq Hakak
Being born in Kashmir and asked to count best childhood memories may make you melancholic for a while because things like firing, curfew and crackdown strikes your mind but admist all this grimness and horror there used to be some best moments too which we still cherish and possess as our childhood memories
Here are few things which will remind you of your childhood.
The weapons of mass destruction during our childhood (LoukChaar) Remember buying this Tasse Banduk and loading reel into it? Close your eyes and imagine the smell it had after it was used.
Water gun 🙂
Also known as watil (cockroach) owing to the peculiar sound of Tip Tip of this toy which resembles the sound as made by cockroaches. Did you do Tip Tip with this on road, in class or at your home? 🙂
Remember catching these and tying them with thread on the tail?
Remember how these would spin?
Has 8 levels. First you have to scatter all the pebbles then throw one up and till it comes back to your hand you have to pick up one pebble that you scattered then two pebbles and so on. The game changes when you reach four pebbles.
Hopscotch or Saz Loung played both by boys and girls, this game involves creating of huge sqaure shaped box on floor compromising of smaller boxes.
In this 2 teams are made and a small tower of broken earthen pots is piled up. Then one team dislodges the pile by throwing a stone at it 3 times and then they try to recompile it. In the meanwhile opposing team would try to take down the players of other team by hitting them with a ball. If the team was able to successfully recompile it they would scream garam to declare victory.
This was usually a popular sport among small girls (6-10 years) where two small girls join their backs and interlock their arms from behind. One of the two bends her body to lift her partner on her back without making any movement of her feet. She then returns to the normal posture. Her partner then bends the body to repeat. The girl whose body is lifted says “tuley langun” and the one who lifts her says “tula:n chhas”.
Remember saying Lakad Lakad kounsi lakad mange? In this you had to choose a tree or wooden thing which you could reach to from your starting point, and then you would have to reach it by clinging on to something wooden while the opposite team would try to hit you with a ball when you are not clinged to a wooden thing.
Inspired from the Hokm (IRANIAN CARD GAME), it is a trick taking game played between four with partners sitting opp to each other. After determining the dealer, the dealer firstly deals five cards to the player sitting right to him who announces the trump suit which he decides considering the five cards he receives, after that dealer continues to deal cards to other players till all of them get thirteen cards. Rest of the game is quite simple and played like any normal trick-taking-game where trump suit has a superior value than other suits. The player who wins the trick leads the next trick. The goal of the game is to win seven tricks first out of the total thirteen tricks possible.
Gaante Baer or kite flying must have been done by almost everyone in Kashmir. The pleasure of it included buying hareeri ( Kite paper), using tujj from tujji lachul and rice to gum it up.
Children used sticks called Gael to pluck walnuts from trees.
Every Kashmiri in their childhood would have had a softy either at Sana/Erina or the one near Zero Bridge
And I found my childhood again…
Being a Kashmiri everyone among us gas gone through this phase in childhood
Remember these antennas? Which had a receiver which had to be tuned to watch PTV.
The one bugni ( piggy bank) rule we had was never to break it. We would keep shaking to hear the chinking of metal money, till we could hear it no more, which meant the need for a bigger bugni.
Cure all household cream
The Ink that we filled in our fountain pens; Ashoka, Parker, President and waterman.
In those days ceiling fans were not common leave alone ACs. These standing fans were a saviour. Please even used to give them in dowry. Kids used to play with its button located at the back and by stopping the blades by something.
A brand of mustard oil that earned trust of every Kashmiri. You could find this can in almost every home.
Here is something that also ruled the Kashmiri kitchen in your childhood.
Every house hold had this electric stove or heater which consumed massive power. #lend #bijlichor #doublephase #transformerphot #seenkinchenivoltagekihin
Going to buy kerosene from Ghat, using pins to remove blocks and pumping air was all included with this King of Kashmiri kitchen.
If you find something missing, please email on manan@www.gyawun.com, would love to add them to the article.
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