One thing I remember about my childhood is playing games. We'd play games ranging from hide and seek to chasing each other. We'd spend a majority of our time outdoors till our parents would call us in or chide us for staying out too late. If we weren't outside, we'd be watching the television or we'd be playing games like Monopoly or Ludo. But the best game of all was Snakes and ladders, it was the one game I always cherished although I wasn't too great at it.
A game of pure luck, ones progress in the game was purely dependent on where the roll of a dice took you. A single play would take you up the ladder, just move ahead or get bitten by those vicious looking snakes. It would always frustrate me to be bitten by those annoying snakes, but the thrill from climbing those ladders would always be worth it. My childhood was filled with games of snakes and ladders. I never really liked those intellectual games like chess. I guess in a way, I preferred playing with my luck rather than challenge my mind over a chess board. As I grew up, the board game became a thing of the past. Gone were the days when we would throw the die and move our pieces along a board. New games started popping up and so did the computer and my snakes and ladder board collected dust in some corner of my house.
This summer, thanks to my grandmother, my mom went out and bought a new board and for the first time in over 6 years, I rolled that dice and re-entered the world of snakes and ladders. The same thrills of climbing the ladder, the disappointment when I went over a snake which took me down a lot of steps. But what made the adventure even more thrilling was playing it with my mother and grandmother. Three generations of women from my family sitting on a single bed in an air conditioned room, throwing the dice and shrieking as we went up the ladder or down the snake. I felt like a kid again, relying completely on that dice to get me to the 100th step. Laughing heartily the three of us rolled the dice over and over again, either going ahead or going back to where we started. Having luck on her side, my grandmother was the first to reach the top. It was down to me and my mother, and after having the bad luck of stepping of the 99th step (which has a snake which takes you down to the 30th step) twice, for which I cussed and shrieked at my bad luck for, my mom finally took the second place. But how we laughed, how we bonded.
Despite having lost miserably, I realized that no matter how grown up one is, there's always that child hidden inside a person, no matter how deep within. Sometimes in our lives are so filled with the tension of competition, expectation and the workload of the modern world, we forget that there's that child within us. We run along with the complexities of life and fail to enjoy the little things. We put on fake smiles, act differently and try to impress people with our maturity and individuality. But we forget that there are times when we need to give up all the worries we have in life, be it as short as a few minutes, just enjoy the fact that we are alive and do the things we truly enjoy doing.
Just give the kid inside some room to breathe and for all you know, you'd love life even more :)
A game of pure luck, ones progress in the game was purely dependent on where the roll of a dice took you. A single play would take you up the ladder, just move ahead or get bitten by those vicious looking snakes. It would always frustrate me to be bitten by those annoying snakes, but the thrill from climbing those ladders would always be worth it. My childhood was filled with games of snakes and ladders. I never really liked those intellectual games like chess. I guess in a way, I preferred playing with my luck rather than challenge my mind over a chess board. As I grew up, the board game became a thing of the past. Gone were the days when we would throw the die and move our pieces along a board. New games started popping up and so did the computer and my snakes and ladder board collected dust in some corner of my house.
This summer, thanks to my grandmother, my mom went out and bought a new board and for the first time in over 6 years, I rolled that dice and re-entered the world of snakes and ladders. The same thrills of climbing the ladder, the disappointment when I went over a snake which took me down a lot of steps. But what made the adventure even more thrilling was playing it with my mother and grandmother. Three generations of women from my family sitting on a single bed in an air conditioned room, throwing the dice and shrieking as we went up the ladder or down the snake. I felt like a kid again, relying completely on that dice to get me to the 100th step. Laughing heartily the three of us rolled the dice over and over again, either going ahead or going back to where we started. Having luck on her side, my grandmother was the first to reach the top. It was down to me and my mother, and after having the bad luck of stepping of the 99th step (which has a snake which takes you down to the 30th step) twice, for which I cussed and shrieked at my bad luck for, my mom finally took the second place. But how we laughed, how we bonded.
Despite having lost miserably, I realized that no matter how grown up one is, there's always that child hidden inside a person, no matter how deep within. Sometimes in our lives are so filled with the tension of competition, expectation and the workload of the modern world, we forget that there's that child within us. We run along with the complexities of life and fail to enjoy the little things. We put on fake smiles, act differently and try to impress people with our maturity and individuality. But we forget that there are times when we need to give up all the worries we have in life, be it as short as a few minutes, just enjoy the fact that we are alive and do the things we truly enjoy doing.
Just give the kid inside some room to breathe and for all you know, you'd love life even more :)
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