When I was little – maybe in 6th standard – we used to play this game called Lagori. Many of you have probably heard of it, played it even. It’s this violent game where some 6-10 kids get together with the explicit purpose of smacking the opponent team with a rubber ball. And we used to play with these hard rubber balls that used to *really* sting your skin when hit. There were some rules to this game – Like knocking down and rebuilding a pile of stones, but the main purpose was to see who can cause the most damage.

There was another game too – called ‘Churchand’. This game was like Lagori, but with all the non-violent bits removed. In this game, there were no stones or teams – You got to smack everybody with a hard rubber ball. The game was played until someone started crying, got hurt, started bleeding or broke something. Ah! Those were the good times.

Anyway, so we’re playing Lagori this one time on the street in front of our house. There are maybe 8 kids playing, and as it happens, I’m holding the rubber ball in my hand. I’ve already singled out the my victim for the day. It was a kid called “Rohit”. I hated this kid because he had refused to let me copy from him earlier that day. “Cheater, Cheater, Cowdung Eater” he’d called me. Oh, how I hated him. I was determined to have my revenge. He was near the center, with his back towards me, busy rebuilding the Lagori.

This was it. I prepared to smack him. I swung my arm all the way to the back, and using all my strength, hurled the ball, full speed, aimed dead center at his back. I even added the ‘wrist flick’ for that extra speed.

Just a few milli-seconds after the ball left my hand, I realized that the ball was going to miss him. “Oh, damn! damn! damn!” I was cursing myself at having missed the golden opportunity, when I heard the dreaded sound.

*CRASH*

The Sound of glass shattering.

This sound has the most interesting effect on kids, if you ever have the chance to observe it. Everyone there froze, dead in their track. For a few milli-seconds, everybody’s life flashed through their eyes, and the doomsday scenario of getting beaten with a cane from the parents replayed in everyone’s minds.

It took everyone only a couple of seconds to recover and flee. All of us ran for our lives. And before the owner of the house whose window I had shattered could come out to investigate, all the 8 of us had fled in different directions, and the street was completely empty.

Rohit and I had ended up hiding behind the same garage. It seemed like we had successfully managed to escape. We congratulated each other for our quick thinking and waited a few more seconds before returning to our houses.

But that’s the problem of being a kid. You can’t think beyond the immediate present. The neighbor, of course, went to another kid’s house, threatened him with a cane, and got the name of the culprit – me.

I still remember that day. I got a real good smacking from my dad. He beat the crap out of me, and made me promise I wouldn’t play Lagori in the street ever again.

Luckily, kids have a very short-term memory, and we were back the next week on the street – This time playing cricket.

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