Seshadri's Musings

This blog is dedicated to the fan in me and others like me who have grown up watching her movies during our childhood days.  Some of the movies that she did are still so vivid in my mind that it still gives me goosebumps when I think about the scenes in those movies.  According to me, her key attraction was her eyes.  The way she used her eyes to convey anything from childish pranks to love to anger to comic timing, it was just ethereal. I have still not seen any other actress even coming close to her impeccable timing of conveying any emotion at the drop of a hat, just with her eyes.  Though she has acted in over 300 films, I will just write on the 3 movies that I fondly remember her by.  These are Mr India, Chaalbaaz and Moondram Pirai (Sadma in Hindi). I still vividly recall that I had gone to see Mr India with my school friends at Delhi’s Liberty theatre, having just completed my 12 th standard.  When the song “Hawaa Hawaai” came on screen, my friend Subbu was li

4.      Gilli Danda – This is a game wherein you use a big stick to hit a small stick 😊 . Of course, it is not so simple.  Check out the picture of a gilli-danda in the page (Pic 1).  You use the big stick (danda) to hit one end of the small stick (gilli). Once you hit one end lightly, the gilli will rise in height or come up slowly and it will be easy for you to hit it with the danda!!  It requires some practice.  But once you do it, it will immerse you in sheer delight throughout the game!!  Of course, only when you are hitting it!!  It can be played as a singles game or a team game.  In a singles game, one person is the hitter while the rest are fielders.  In a team game, one team are the hitters till each one is declared out and the other team is the fielding team.       Pic 2                                               Pic 1 A small pit/hole is made and the gilli kept on it horizontally.  Using the danda (see Pic 2) the hitter tries to fling the gilli as far as

3.        Cricket – Don’t worry, this is not the usual cricket that we see kids or adults play on the ground nowadays.  In those days, we used to invent new ways to play games.  Depending on the ground or a place that we could get to play, we used to play the following different forms of cricket.  And trust me, each one was fun to play!!  We used to play with tennis balls, as the cricket ball would have been dangerous 😊. You will understand once you go through the following cricket games!! Moreover, tennis balls were cheaper!!  a)      French cricket – Don’t know how the name came into being.  In this game of cricket, a small circle is drawn in the middle of the ground.  The batsman stands inside the circle and the stumps are his legs.  The bowler (the first one) stands at some 10 feet away and his aim is to hit the batsman’s leg to get him out.  The batsman will keep his bat before his legs, hiding it and try to hit the ball in whichever direction he wanted.  If he got a hit, h

During my childhood, I remember we used to play so many games that it was never enough to call it a day.  Any free time that was available, there were a lot of those during that time, as there was no TV, no gadgets, no landline (at least my house did not have one and we used to give a PP number. PP meant Private Party or Personal Phone at neighbor house or “Padosi ke Paas wala” phone 😊 ), I will be outside the house in the neigbourhood park, playing all sorts of games.  The next couple of blogs would be on those games that I used to play during my childhood, which are still vibrant in my memory. Of course, I will skip the games that are played even today like cricket, football, table tennis, volley ball etc.  If this helps to give some pointers to the present generation kids how to while away the time, usefully, this blog would have served its purpose.  I already have some 25 games noted down 😊 1.     Ice Spies or Chuppa Chuppi.  I don’t know how the word “ice spies” came into