Cricket remains my favorite sport but I have had to play some really amusing games in the past 24 years of my life. It perhaps isn't what 'normal' guys would play ... but who said I was normal anyway?

Take for example the magical game of 'Princess'. The only way I could entertain two little girls across my street was by playing this enchanted game. It was a simple game of pictionary except that you had to enact certain words whispered in your ear which the other girl guesses. If the girl gets it right, you suddenly chase her and try to catch hold of her within a certain time period. Why on earth would I chase someone if they get the right answer is beyond my comprehension but the rules were laid down strictly by those little girls and I had to abstain from asking too many logical questions. The person with most points eventually wins and is crowned the 'princess'. I had the fortuity to be crowned the most number of times. I am the official princess of our layout :-(

I played this game of 'hopping' over numbered squares (a very common game called 'kuntu-pille' in Kannada). This is a game every kid mostly of the feminine gender plays on their streets in front of their houses drawing squares using bricks and using the nicest smoothest polished stone like a striker. This I played with a group of cousins and unfortunately again, I emerged the reigning champion! I defeated almost 3 girls who carried the experience of at least 4 to 5 years in this game on my debut day!

With this little girl cousin of mine in Pittsburgh, I play snakes & ladders, except that I'm the most miserable failure in this particular game. Ask me why. Technically, I play awesome. I get to climb most ladders, I miss most snakes, I frequently get sixes on the dice... but... and here comes the but... the number 97 (sometimes 99) eludes me the most! That's where you get to be bitten by the last snake on the board - it always bites me! Even if it doesn't ... I still lose. Ask me why again! Everyone hates losing and this little girl takes it personally and attacks me if she loses. In fact, she even attacks her parents if she loses. So, she very conveniently turns the dice in slow motion until she gets the score she wants... to make matters worse (for me) and better (for her), she also adjusts my dice in such ways that I get bitten by every snake on the board not once but twice ruling out any possibility of my victory. Makes me wonder why I even care to play ... but in the end, she's happy = I'm happy!

Then I have this little dynamite in Dallas. I have done the weirdest of things with her. One actively pursued game by both of us was to collect long twigs and sticks. Why you ask me... I dunno! We just happen to collect them... and continue to collect them... until we have lots of them... and then we collect more, all of which we assemble on a table. Then we use them as projectiles to throw them into the creek. I still don't understand what the whole point is here... but her concentration and enthusiasm in doing this motivates me to do the same thing too! She also likes to take me around and show numerous holes she dug with her friends... one fun game we both play with each other is - she writes imaginary letters on my back and I have to guess the word, and then I do the same thing to her - this is something I enjoy because it is so ticklish!

Another little girl used to give me a little Ganesha idol and asks me to tell a story with it... I had to dust off my rusty brain and create such imaginations - in my story Ganesha has played the roles of a police constable, a surgeon, a blood-thirsty villain and even super-man!!!

I wish I had more male-cousins! Then, I'd get to play with Nintendos and play stations... things would be less pinker... games would be less prettier and more competitive. Until that happens... I have to be contented in being a princess - in a land of imagination ... of a little child's mind!