Is it possible to miss a game you’ve never played? We might all do so, someday. India’s traditional sports are fast fading from the landscape. As pucca houses and walker’s paths replace mud huts and open grounds, even the games of the street have become professionalized. Cricket reigns supreme; its cousin, street cricket, perhaps in second place. But what of the ancient, rustic game of Gilli Danda?
Out of sight, out of mind. It’s clear that when people speak of their games of Gilli Danda, they refer only to their childhoods. But this could be a childhood tradition that spans beyond 2000 B.C.
There’s little documented about the sport, except that it’s been played on the subcontinent since forever. In novels and short stories, like Anandamayee Singh’s “As it Happened in 1942” or Prem Chand’s “Gilli-Danda,” we can see that it’s a game associated with reminiscence. As Prem Chand wrote:
You don’t need a lawn or a court, neither a net nor any other contrivance. You lop off a branch from a tree and fashion a Gilli out of it. Two are enough to start a game… Among all the sweet memories of childhood this is the sweetest.
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