Thursday, January 26, 2012

Innocence Found


A lot of our childhood games encourage us to develop skills required to be a good criminal. We run away, dodge and escape from the catcher in pakdam pakdai and its regional variations, hide from the catcher in hide and seek, destroy a neatly stacked pile of stones in pitthoo and then set about rebuilding it before we get caught and work as a team to distract those trying to catch us out in gallery. Maaram pitti is probably preparation for prison life where you unnecessarily hit each other to get everyone out of the game. We also acknowledge the fact that being a cop isn’t half as fun as being a robber – the catcher gets to hide again once he finds someone else to blame.

Are we shaping future criminals, acknowledging the fun of doing something unlawful or just maintaining skills that would be required in the wild in case of an evolutionary turnaround? 

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