After being restricted to a residential complex in Kolkata with no place for outdoor activities, an eight-year-old Sayantani beamed with joy as soon as she got to know about visiting her grandmother’s ancestral house in Bankura district post lockdown, where she gets to play a game named ‘Vish Amrit’ (poison and honeydew) with her friends in the village.
‘Vish Amrit’ is one of the lost games of India which is also known as ‘lock and key’. In this game, the aim of a team member is to give ‘vish’ to opponent team players. While the opponent team member is supposed to save his/her teammate with ‘Amrit’ and without being caught.
Like Sayantani, there are many young children nowadays who are forced to play games online due to scarcity of space for outdoor games.
Therefore, to take the young generation out of mobile and video games, ‘Kreeda Bharati’, the sports wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has started organising “lost and ancient” games of India across West Bengal. Currently, ‘Kreeda Bharati’ has 110 units across the state, promoting lost or ancient games among the youngsters.
Besides this, members of ‘Kreeda Bharati’ have also started promoting lost and ancient games at Vidya Bharati School in the state. There are 219 Vidya Bharati schools in South Bengal and 103 in North Bengal.
“This is a unique initiative taken by us to revive the lost games of India. The response is extremely good from the youngsters. We have started these games in all the units of ‘Kreeda Bharati’,” Bibhash Majumder, Secretary of Kreeda Bharati, told News18.
“Nowadays, most of the children are addicted to mobile phones and with no physical activities. They are going through an unhealthy lifestyle. Their liking towards junk food is also pushing them towards obesity and hypertension. This is alarming and therefore we thought to promote such games. Such games require stamina and it will help our young generation to lead a healthy lifestyle,” he explained.
Speaking about the future plans, he said, “We are also planning to make videos of such ‘desi’ games like ‘Luko Chhupi’ (Hide-n-Seek), ‘Bagdi’ (a kind of kho-kho), ‘Dom Kabaddi’, ‘Kancher Guli’ (striking marble), ‘Jailer Math’ (chain), ‘Latto’, ‘Kith-Kith’ (Hopscotch), ‘Ring Khela’ (similar to basketball) etc. We will circulate these videos on social media so that those who live in urban areas could also get to know about these lost games and they can encourage their children to play these games to stay fit. All these games require stamina and it will make them mentally and physically fit.”
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