Power of Unknown

Last weekend, Ryan, my son, came up with a suggestion for a game we never played before. It quite a simple one in fact. All what we had to do, was to recollect names of movies we know. There were no rules other than limiting the movies to a specific industry, for example, South Indian movies only. Since it was a random recollection of movie names, I thought it was going to be quite simple. But as soon as the game started, realization dawned on me that it wasn’t that easy.

As the game progressed, even the names of some of the greatest movies I had watched somehow eluded me. It was quite a strain on my brain to dig deeper and recollect some of the well-known movie names from the past. Not that, the more recent ones were easy to remember. They were equally challenging. Nevertheless, we kept playing and had a good time.

Next day, Mia, my daughter came up with an improvement to this game. She suggested playing the same game, but instead of movie names, it will be characters from movies and TV shows. My first reaction was that it was going to be a boring game. What was the point in stating the character names randomly? I was certain that we will be playing only for a few minutes, and we would switch back to the original version of the game.

The game started. One by one, the character names started coming out. That was when magic struck! Each of the characters identified not just became a part of our game, but literally started doing a parade in our minds. We were living through the movie scenes with the character and many times were overwhelmed with the emotional outbursts.

We laughed our hearts out recollecting some of the comedy scenes played by the characters. Happiness gave way to fear when characters from horror movies took centre stage. Excitement, Amusement, Gratitude, Pride, Anticipation, what not?! It was an avalanche of emotions that took us through an awesome journey as the game progressed. Little did I anticipate a seemingly simple game providing us with truckloads of entertainment. Both the games were a huge hit in our family!

A quick thought flashed my mind. Isn’t this exactly what happens in our workspace? Sometimes we are offered a new piece of work. Without any hesitation, we assume that the work is not going to be interesting. More than once, I have personally experienced, how exciting the new work is after a few days of committing to it.

Being unprejudiced is not an easy human nature. While it is quite a challenge to overcome this trait, the least we could do is to try and give a chance to the unknown. Who knows, we may be pleasantly surprised by the power of emotions that get kicked in with the unknown. You may even end up thinking, why you didn’t do this much earlier.

So next time, we get presented with an opportunity, let us embrace the power of unknown and surrender ourselves to the mystery and tell inertia to take a hike!

PS: I strongly recommend exploring the above, both in your family and workspace. If you find it amusing and want to thank my kids, do let me know. Rest assured, I shall pass on the compliments to Ryan & Mia.

When I met a Prince

It was early 1990s. The small town of Changanacherry in Kerala woke up to an incredible news! We’re going to have an exhibition in our little town. So what’s the big deal about exhibitions? Has there never been exhibitions before? Of course there were many and people loved to be a part of these. So what’s different this time? What was getting exhibited made all the difference now. It was something the town only started hearing off late. An exhibition of a curious invention called ‘computers’ that is meant to change the world!

Getting ready to step into my teenage years, I was obviously super excited with the prospect of seeing this magical thing. All of us in the town counted the days to the exhibition and awaited in anticipation. Finally the day came and people flocked in large numbers to see the machine nick named as the game changer of the world.

We got into the building where the exhibition was conducted. I remember standing in a long queue and waiting for my turn to be near a computer. Soon enough, we stepped into an air conditioned hall, which itself was a luxury in my town. There they were! A few boxes, some in square shape and others rectangular. Got to know later that they were known as monitor and CPU.

There was a glass partition between the viewers and the magical boxes. There was no way of touching a computer. The exhibition literally allowed you only to have a glimpse of future! There were two or three computers, each one of them displaying some or other images. One of the computers attracted a huge crowd, especially kids. The organizers of the exhibition were having a tough time to control the crowd.

It was finally my turn to be in front of the most happening of the computers. There in front of me stood a small square box where certain pictures could be seen in black and white. Some of the images from the book One Thousand and One Arabian Nights appeared to come alive in front of me. Shortly enough came a writing on the screen, it read ‘Prince of Persia’. I was seeing a computer game for the first time ever in my life!

He was the simplest of the Prince I ever imagined! Pictured in a dungeon wearing a white jump suit trying to reach a level where an imprisoned princess awaits him to be saved. It was to be the most exciting game I’ve ever played in my life. Needless to say the exhibition was a grand success!

Little did I know that day, in a couple of decades I’ll literally end up in Middle East with my job in the land of Royals next to erstwhile Persia!  

Game of Gods

I could see the father and son in the game room staring at the black and white squares on the chess board. No other game gifted these two the kind of adrenaline rush this one created. What can be more exciting than deciding the destiny of people you see around everyday?!

I took a closer look at the pieces on the board. They all looked like someone or the other I know. King had dad's face and queen resembled mom. Knights, bishops, rooks, pawns... They all were either family or friends.

Something baffled me though. The game is in an auto-play mode. The pieces move at their own command. There are defined rules, though at times a few are broken. That’s when I see the father getting involved. He'll mercilessly knock down the piece that didn’t follow the rule. The son though pleads every time to give them a second chance which he manages to get.

This continued for a while. All of a sudden something bothered the father. Soon enough he turned red with anger. Even before the son could do anything the father shook the entire chess board!

I saw the queen falling down along with the knights and rooks. But the son managed to retain them on the board. The bishop was not that fortunate. Though the son reached out he helplessly watched him fall through the crack of the fingers and hit the floor head first.

Somewhere far away, mom, the queen, got admitted in a hospital. A couple of cousins, the knights and rooks, had to go to clinics feeling sick.

Tomorrow is the funeral of a friend, the bishop, who met with a freak car accident!

The game continues...

Game of Trunk

How unusual could names for games be?!! ‘Trunk’ was one such which used to generate so much of vigour, back when games meant more than PS3 and Xbox.

The mode of game was pretty simple, yet was one with a major impact on the players, literally and figuratively. A few stones, a ball and two teams were all that was needed. Those were the times when there was no dearth of getting kids from your neighbourhood to play along. I remember parents asking us to go out and play instead of being glued to the TV sets or video games which were just beginning to become a fad.

Back to the game, two teams will be formed. 7 pieces of stones will be made available. As in the case of any sport where decision making needs to be made, tossing a coin played a major role. The winning team gets to use the ball first. The pieces of stones have to be arranged one on top of the other. Aiming the ball at this stone pile follows. Each team gets three chances to hit the stack failing which the other team gets the turn.

All hell breaks loose as soon as at least one stone gets displaced! A totally irreverent melee follows! The team that played the ball runs for their life all the while looking at an opportunity to put the stack back in order. The most obvious action for the opposite team is to thwart that attempt at any cost.

One of the most exciting and painful sights of the game is to watch the ball fly at the speed of light with one of the poor souls trying to rearrange the pile as its target. Cries fill the air, pain fills the nerves, but the show must go on...

It was a game of exhilaration, sadistic pleasure and fraternity! One that taught team work, all the while reminding that you can achieve anything but of course with some pain!

Salute the good old days!