Man From Matunga

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March 11, 2006

Opingo Batingo

This appeared in today's Mumbai Mirror.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to the 10th wedding anniversary of a close school friend. While mingling with some other friends who were there, I suddenly had the wind blown out of me by a big thump on my back. I turned around and found another old school friend, with his index finger raised, mouthing the word “Opingo”.

We must be the only two over-40 relics still playing this game. It started in Don Bosco and we’ve carried it through college and graduate school, till the present.. For those who came in late (a la the Ghost Who Walks), it is a very simple game, played for the sole purpose of inflicting pain by hitting the other person as hard as possible. In brief, if you stand, you have to raise your index finger and say “Opingo” and if you sit, you have to put up your index and middle fingers and say “Batingo”. If you don’t, the person with whom you are playing the game has the right to hit you.

It is somewhat like “statue”, but honestly, “statue” is an amazingly silly game, which works only on the premise that the other person will follow your command. If he/she refuses to, there is not a damn thing you can do. Here if the other person does not say “Opingo” or “Batingo”, you can hit him/her. Hard! Wow!

Probably the closest game to this was “Apadhubi”. In this game, you took a rubber ball and just hit whoever was nearest you with as much force as possible. As simple as that. It was a great game to vent out your anger, angst and energy. Square-ball and dodge-ball came a close second, the aim again being to hit someone as hard as possible with the ball and to get that person out. I still remember playing square-ball in my building compound and hitting a young girl on her chest when we were both I guess around 10-12 years old. She started crying and I kept laughing. No wonder, we are from Mars and girls…forget Venus, they used to be from another universe in those days.

Obviously the next thing to say would be “where have these good old days gone”, “children today don’t play…they only watch television or are on the PC…”. These are such clichés as well. Though my kids love to watch their movies and television (restricted to weekends), they are now part of a gang of kids, that is constantly out in the compounds of the buildings in our block, playing the usual games that kids do (icespice, catching cook, kicking the ball, cycling). Plus they play in Don Bosco in the evenings, attend basketball coaching and have become karate brown belts.

Not only them, there is always someone or the other in the gully playing cricket, while others play football or basketball in the school grounds, and some land up in the nearby gyms.

My kids may never land up playing “Apadhubi” or lagori, or gilli-danda, but they still are outdoors for a good amount of time. My take? Television and PCs are so ubiquitous that they are just becoming another set of tools for entertainment, taken as matter of fact by the current generation of kids. It is in fact our generation that seems to be addicted, most likely because we didn’t have these gadgets when we were growing up.

Or maybe this is all just a Matunga thing!

Posted by bhavinj at March 11, 2006 01:52 AM

Comments

Posted by: Divya at April 19, 2006 04:54 PM

Posted by: Bhavin at May 7, 2006 06:15 PM

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