Passing on some of our childhood memories

Saturday evenings make for great parties, movie plans or catching up with friends.
But this Saturday before catching up with friends I accompanied my sister and niece to the swimming pool at the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) for an early evening swim.

While my sister was busy teaching my niece the basics of swimming, I couldn't help but notice that for every adult in the pool there must have been at least 4 adolescents.

And it got me wondering, what kind of water games does this Generation Y (or Z, or whatever we are calling them now) play in the pool?
They've moved from lagori (7 tiles) to tablets, pakda pakdi (catch catch) to whatsapp messaging and cricket and football under the mid day sun to cricket and football under the air conditioner on the XBox/PS3.

So I listened and watched.

A group of 4-5 twelve year olds formed a straight line on the diving board and jumped one after the other into the pool screaming out incoherent war cries.

A girl tossed a shiny 2 rupee coin into the deep end of the pool as her brother dived in and swam to the bottom to retrieve it.

While in the shallow end 3 six year old girls were paddling after each other in their version of pakda pakdi.

"Mamu!!" - my niece's voice reminded me of my uncle duties and as I swam up to her I was glad to know that while the times have changed, at least some of the games that my sister and me grew up playing in the swimming pool would be handed down to my niece to enjoy too.

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