GAMES

Among the educated classes western games like cricket, football, hockey and tennis are making headway in urban centres and in high schools. Cards and chess are played at home and in clubs. Newspapers, magazines and cinemas are fast becoming popular among the literate. Many a house in the towns is equipped with a harmonium and tabla and the radio broadcasts of film music and scientific music have created a new field for amusement of whole families. The rural folk too enjoy broadcasts that are calculated to be both educative and entertaining.

Recreational activities and games popular among children in the district have parallels perhaps with such activities all the world over. Dolls are made of clay and cloth and now-a-days, rubber and plastic and occasionally their marriages are celebrated with feasts. Tag and chase games such as andhali koshimbir and lapandav are popular among boys and girls of all ages. Games such as surparambi and vagh-bakri are played in a team spirit. Games of gotya and bhonvara (marbles and top-spinning) are played with a keen sense of contest by boys, as also kite flying, bhaltukali, gajge or sagargote and phugdya are essentially games played by girls. Games played in the primary and other schools in the district are practically the same as in any other district of Maharashtra. Of these the well-known major Indian games are atya-patya, kabaddi, kho-kho, langadi, lagorya and viti-dandu.

Swimming and walking on stilts are the pastimes of the month of Shravana. Kite-flying is indulged in mainly at the time of the makar sankranti. It is a favourite game with the old and young and the game of patanga ladhane which consists in trying to cut the strings of each others kites while they are flying up in the air is enthusiastically played. When the string of a kite is cut, it falls to the ground and it becomes the property of any one who picks it up first. For the purpose of this game a special kitethread rubbed with paste mixed with glass-dust, to make it hard and sharp is made use of.