An undying spirit of traditional games

I was at a school event recently, when a young mother dismissed a couple of games as there was nothing, in her belief, to be learned from them. She called it a waste of time. A grandmother told me recently, There are no backyards anymore, or large verandahs...and the children go from the confinement of the classroom to the confinement of the tuition room or are bundled off to practise another competitive sport. With time for games slowly disappearing, games, with their oral tradition of rules and the temporary boards drawn on floors with chalk or soapstone, are slowly but surely vanishing from our everyday lives. But play is an impulse native to man, and while unstructured traditional modes of play are disappearing, structured play in the form of competitive sport has taken centre stage. From the Olympics to the IPL and a host of other sporting events, play has taken on a larger sense. The very background to these events was to focus on youth the leaders of tomorrow, and what better way to symbolise the spirit of youth than sport an activity which is believed to bring out the best in a human being. In fact, the essence of the Olympic oath, in spite of numerous additions and changes, is still a commitment to compete in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honour of our teams. Sadly, however, we have gone a long way from there. Sporting events have moved away from play at its most innocent and basic form to a more reward-based system, which results in even young children asking me at events whether they will get a prize if they win the game. The result is a shift in focus from playing for pleasure to winning at all costs. My sports teacher in school taught us the sportsmans prayer, and the last two lines echo in my mind: If I should lose, let myself lose like a man and cheer as the winners go by. While the pronoun may be gender-based, the idea, the concept, and the lesson it carries is not. Perhaps the time has come for us to step back and embrace traditional play, not necessarily in just the games, but in the spirit of play. As Childrens Day draws near, I would like to take inspiration from Jawaharlal Nehru, for whom, playing was as much a part of living as speaking or writing a truth perhaps best captured by his own words: A day spent without some form of play, or a good laugh, is a day wasted. While there seem to be no records of him playing traditional games, he did develop an affinity for flying kites and carried this pastime with him when he went to England to study and even taught his classmates. Some records indicate that when he was Prime Minister, he would host large gatherings of children at his residence. Numerous anecdotes describe him blowing bubbles or even playing a round of musical chairs, where he let the children win. But it is not for Childrens Day or for his kite flying that we need to remember him, but for his belief in the essence of play. At the first Asian Games hosted in Delhi in 1951 that he said, Play the game in the spirit of the game, a phrase that became the motto for the games. Traditional games have a lot to teach us, but perhaps the most important is the spirit of the play.