Tennis Anyone ?

Archie and Jughead would be nice to Veronica’s Dad so that he would let them use his pool and tennis court. We would nice to everyone [when our parents were around]. But nobody let us use either pool or tennis court. Because nobody had one. If you wanted to go swimming you jumped into the sea at Carter Road. Or waited for school to organize a trip to the Mahatma Gandhi swimming pool at Dadar. With it’s always broken down filtration plant. With frogs that jumped out of your way while you emulated Mark Spitz. { tried to.} With showers that left you feeling grimier than when the trickle of water first emerged. Then St. Stanislaus opened their pool. Which had been shut down aeons ago. Because someone was supposed to have died in it. And quickly shut it down again because water was too scarce. So between the time that St. Stanislaus shut down their pool and the Dmonte Park recreation centre opened their’s [ approx. twenty years.] We played Gilli dandu. Gilli dandu and seven tiles and Atti Patti and Jack and the monkey and blind mans buff when it rained. Up and down the staircase with acrobatics normally seen only in Apollo or Gemini circii.
Tops and marbles. Tops for which we made flat spikes. A spike being the point your top spun on. We’d take carpentery screws to Bandra station. Place it on the track and wait for a passing train. The train would have flattened out the head of the screw. Leaving the threads intact. It would have also sent the screw flying and you had scout for the screw between tracks and passing trains while doing your best to stay out of the cupboard near the cycle stand.You then filed the flattened edge down to a knife like sharpness. This was then threaded into your top. And when you cracked you top down on your opponents tops, it would split them like a ripe mango that slipped thru the jowla. { Net bag used for catching mangoes } .
Marbles we could play at home.[ When grounded]. Cement tiles were easy enough to make a gull in. A gull being the hole into which you had to get your marble from a pre determined distance. You could only play marbles when Mummy was asleep or out. We’d drilled the gull below the sofa. And the inhabitants of Alcatraz would have been proud of our skill at concealment.
We’d play table tennis on the dining table. With books opened out on edge to form the net. War and Peace made for a good section of the net because it held up to hard smashes. The Readers Digest’s tended to foldover with even a little topspin. If you stamped the ball it squashed. To unsquash it you had to boil it. God help you if the powers that be found you using the milk chatti for this.
Your place at the game was determined by a game of rounders. Which had to be played without waking parents who were indulging in a Sunday afternoon siesta. So you ran around the table on tippy toes. Trying to keep the ball in play longer than assorted siblings and neighbours. Neighbours whose dining table was positioned against the wall or who had that all time classic . The folding dining table. The Wibledon open was never as keenly contested . The only reason play would be abandoned would be if the squashed ball refused to come unsquashed and all the water in the milk chatti evaporated.