Summer Holiday Games From Pallaanguzhi, Anju Kal To Uno Card Games!

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Pallaanguzhi (click this to know about the game)

5 kal game.

Tamarind seeds

My niece had come home for her children's summer holidays.  The children are small kids, 4 and 8 year olds.  My sons have grown up now and the word 'summer holidays' has gone out from my memory! But when these kids came and the way they enjoyed their holidays, brought back my old memories (I am an expert now recollecting old memories, you know by now!).

Now, let me start with the way I spent my summer holidays, during late '60's! I have 4 siblings and during the holidays, either we were going to our native place Udupi (we used to get concession forms in our school to go to our native place which would get us tickets for less than half the price of the original ticket price) or spend time at home playing Pallanguzhi (the first game in the picture either with tamarind seeds, which is shown below the game or with some red beads)
Anju kal game (the next picture) with ordinary stones.  These games can be played by two players at a time and mostly played by girls and women.  Boys used to play outside the house.  For more girls and sometimes boys also joined, we used to throw the tamarind seeds or red beads 100-200 at a time on the floor. Take one bead, throw it up and before it comes down, pick up/sweep up the beads on the floor in 2s, 4s, 6s.  Collect them and count them.  The more seed holder is the winner.  Or play this...sort of chess.  Four people can play at a time:

5 Kal game: I don't remember the game exactly.... Any feed back?!

Then my sons' days, in the late '80's! It was scrabble, chess, card games like ass, rummy etc., carom board....reading, watching TV (TV days had started!).  Evenings were for outdoor games.  In my childhood, we went to movies, very rarely but it increased in my sons' days/holidays! Though I too was reading books, it increased during my sons' days!

Now, during the current summer holidays, we played Uno (card game), snake and ladder with the small kids.

We used to play this game on the nights of Vaikuntha Ekadashi with our cousins...the whole night and it was called 'paramapadam'! The modern version of 'snake & ladders' seem to be interesting for the modern kids!

The youngest one played Uno and Snake & ladder like a pro! She was advising others too, about how to play! Very very shrewd for her age.  She is going to UKG from next month!

And both the kids were obsessed with Barbie stories and movies.  The older one followed the story but the younger one made her own story! Danced with lip movement (without knowing the words or meaning!) exactly like the barbie character and with a serious face! All of us were enjoying watching her than the movie!



We got them Barbie story book (Barbie doll was given during her last visit!) alongwith Panchatantra stories and other mythological stories' book.  We took them to 'Jungle book' movie...the older one liked it more than the younger one.  The younger one was bored and was after her banana (she is allergic to milk and yeast, so we had brought some bananas for her but the security at the gate of the theatre refused to allow us to take it inside the theatre).  My niece took her out during the interval, begged the security to give the banana back saying the child will eat it in front of her. They refuse to allow us to take food items inside so that their sales of food items don't get affected! Inox theatre or any theatre, doesn't allow.



My niece wanted to watch 'Bajirao Mastani' and we watched it at home.  The kids made us to replay the dance songs and they danced (jumped) along!

Visited Railway museum in ICF, Chennai (Post will be written later!) which is very old but we hadn't visited until now.  Visited Light house at the Marina beach...the view from the top was awesome! The children were tired but enjoyed!


I cooked a lot for them and all of us enjoyed their summer holidays at our home!  It was fun!
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P.S.: All pictures of the games are from google, thank you, Google!