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Tatha was unstoppable. It had been a long while since he had lectured his son.

“How you are raising your children… all wrong. Look at me. Learn from me. See, I am so proud of you today. Only because your mother and I raised you well. You think you will be proud of your two little rowdies when they are your age? If they grow like this only, no, they will definitely make your head hang in shame. Last year vacation, when I was in Bangalore, I observed them every day. Full day they sit in front of a screen…small screen, big screen…any screen… no dearth of screens– phones, ipads, TV, computer, and watch all the trash those Western people are throwing at us. Head-blasting music, eye-watering pictures…all mind-numbing things. The most worst thing, you know, all that violence, blood and gore. That game, that Gajji-Bajji ...something they play, where everybody is killing each other, blood is spraying like a garden hose, but the children are not even wincing or looking away! They think killing is a game. All games are like that only. That other one, that landmines, crafts, something …one day your younger boy showed me how to bury horses and kill some villagers! Ayyo! Rama, Rama! I could not even sleep properly that night. You have to control them now only, otherwise it will be high time!”

As Tatha ran out of breath, Madan took a breather. “That is why I have brought them here this time, Appa, for a vacation.”

Alok and Amogh had thrown a huge tantrum and cried themselves to sleep after lunch. There was no YouTube on the phone because internet had not reached Tatha’s remote village yet. What was worse, Tatha did not even have a TV, forget a computer! When they discovered that their father had conveniently left the bag packed with Nerf guns back at Bangalore, the dam finally broke, letting loose a flood of tears.

Tatha heaved out of his chair as if an idea had hit him suddenly, “I know what to do. Come with me.”

Leading Madan to the locked store room in the backyard, he gave a wink and grinned, “Do you remember all the games you used to play… marbles, sea-shells, spinning tops, karra-billa, donga-polees, vamanaguntalu, vaikuntapali, racing tyres, carroms, chess? I did not throw out any of them, they are all here, inside.”

Two hours later, father and son emerged beaming from the long-forgotten room, arms loaded with an assortment of curios, of all shapes and sizes, some broken, some intact, but well-dusted and cleaned.

When the two groggy-eyed boys spied the heap in the middle of the room on waking up, they made their way to it like ants to a sugar cube.

Beckoning his sons to sit with him on the floor, Madan smiled indulgently.

“These are… no… were my toys. And now, they are all yours,” he said, as if bequeathing his ancestral property to them. Their initial curiosity somewhat chastened, the two young boys sat down and pulled and prodded at the ancient wooden ‘gadgets’.

Alok picked up a black-and-white halved tamarind seed. “Is this some kind of insect?”

“It looks like alien poo,” giggled Amogh, the younger and naughtier of the two, spotting more of them.

“That is just a seed, my dear, broken into half. We used four of those as a dice, to play…”

“What’s a dice?” murmured Alok, before moving on to a long fish-shaped hinged wooden contraption with a series of cavities on both sides.

“That is called Vamana Guntalu,” piped in Tatha eagerly, happy to see his grandsons showing some interest.

“It looks weird! What do you do with it?” exclaimed Alok.

“See, it is an indoor game. We used to play with lot of tamarind seeds or sea shells. First you put 12 seeds in all 14 holes, but only 2, 2 in the middle two. Then, you take one seed from each hole and put it in another one and you do like that till you come to the other side. Continue like that only, till there is a empty hole, then you take all the seeds from next hole and keep on your side…”

The blank stares of the children whose math skills had been seriously challenged stopped Tatha’s enthusiastic explanation halfway.

Noticing their interest waning, Madan picked up a faded puppet with ten heads and chimed in, “Look, this is a leather doll of Ravana, the demon king. My aunt gifted it to me when I was about your age.”

Throwing a cursory look, Amogh suddenly picked up a wooden tiger, and sprang it at Alok, who jerked back instinctively.

“Ha, ha, gotcha! Wow… this is a cool beast.”

“That is a Kondapalli toy, my dear…we had a complete set, your grandmother used to display them during Sankranti festival.”

Tatha looked at Madan fondly, who wondered how long these decoys would keep the children amused.

“Are there more of these?” asked Amogh, tipping the toys basket upside down.

“Yes, yes, see, there is a bullock cart, and that man, woman, one horse, and…”

“How do you play with them, Tatha?”

“Aa, see, you simply…actually, we keep them on a big stand during the festival, then, everyone will visit our house and we will go to their house to see their dolls. Otherwise, you can simply build a toy farm, isn’t it? And the bullocks…”

“Will be attacked by a tiger, who rips them apart and feasts on their flesh,” continued Amogh, eyes shining with excitement.

“Ayyo, no, no. You cannot kill, you have to make a small…”

“Amogh! Look! This new plane has smashed the World Trade Tower. It is crashing do…w…n,” laughed Alok, ramming a swan-shaped toy boat into the column of black and white carrom coins his father had just stacked up.

Tatha gave Madan a disapproving look, as if it was his upbringing that had come undone. Feigning a cough, Madan got up and tugged at his father’s wrist.

“Come Appa, let them explore. We’ll have a cup of tea,” he said, steering his father away from the ‘play-area’.

Half an hour later, Tatha sat up and smiled at Madan.

“See…I told you! They are so engrossed in the toys, they have forgotten all about screens and video games. Come, we will see what new thing they have found now.”

Father and son peeped in through the half-closed door, but there was no sign of the toys. The ‘play-area’ had been transformed. Using the rope as a catapult, Alok flung the spinning top at his brother from behind an upturned chair and screamed, “Attack! The Zombies are here!”

Amogh meanwhile, held up the Vaikuntapali board in one hand, as if the venomous snakes and the ladders would shield him, and ducked the missile going astray. With his other hand, he hurled a barrage of tamarind seeds at the chair hiding his brother.

“Yo, humans, we will get you with these grenades!” he shouted gleefully.

“And now for the final assault with my Nerf Barrel Blaster.” Alok had found a new use for the fish-shaped contraption, which he now held like a pointed gun and spattered away a hail of imaginary bullets.

“Aaah, One zombie down, sniper take over,” yelled Amogh, acting dead for a second with his head lolling down and again instantly took aim at Alok with a wooden flute he had stuffed with marbles.

Tatha went back to his rocking chair with a sullen look. Madan looked at him and murmured wistfully, “I wish I had brought the toy guns, it would have been less dangerous.”

(Inspired by ‘Toys of Peace’ by Saki and my two boisterous boys)