Toys we used to make

 In those days, there were few toys available in shops, and nothing much to appeal to the youths in my community which was largely made up of working class families. The affluent could afford toys such as Meccano engineering sets. Board games such as the Western and Chinese chess, and draughts were easily available and affordable.

However, these games did not appeal to the more adventurous teenagers. They were more interested in toys that could be used as 'weapons' to play among themselves or to shoot at birds.

One such popular toy was the catapult.

The game of Chapteh was normally played by younger kids. The skills require were not complex and also there were no 'trophies' to be won. It was purely a sporting contest among participants. The only piece of equipment needed was the 'chapteh' (somewhat similar to a shuttle cock)

The challenge was for each contestant to keep the 'chapteh' aloft with his feet. The players would keep count on the number of  times the 'chapteh' was kept aloft. The winner would be the one with the highest score.

Commerncially made 'chapteh' were easily available from the provision shops. However, part of the fun and fulfilment of the game was to make your own version. The more skilful players preferred to make their own, as they would be able to customize them to bring out their abilities

For the base, rubber from the inner tubes of tyres or thick cardboard were used. These were cut into circular pieces and stacked to the required thickness. A pin which was usually a metal nail would be driven through the centre to protrude as a stem to hold the feathers. Usually two to four duck feathers were used.

The home-made 'chapteh' rarely had their feathers colored. The players took great pride in the performance of their custom-made ones, and would take great pains to maintain them, replacing the base as well as the feathers as and when necessary.

Rolling the bicycle rim

The bicycle was quite a popular mode of transportation and many households had them purely for utilitarian purposes quite unlike today when they are mostly used for recreaton. This led inevitably to old rims being discarded when new ones were needed as replacements

The old rims that were not too badly corroded or dented were taken over by boys. They were then put through a process: the rubber tyre, spokes and hub were removed leaving only the metal rim. This was used for the game of rolling it with the aid of a rattan stick. The stick was used to propel and guide the rim. Some preimary schools even used this game as an event in their sports.

Fighting paper fish

This was probably created by some youngsters when they were making "origami" fishes. There were only two requirements for the fish to enable it to "fight". It must be able to move and have collapsible 'jaws' that could be manipulated to 'bite and seize' an opponent. Movement of the fish is through air blown onto its tail to propel it forward. For this to happen, the tail of the fighting fish was shaped to trap air when the player blew on it.

Each player, in turn ,would blow on the tail fin of his fish to propel it to clamp its jaws on any part of the opponent. When this was achieved the player had one chance to grab the opponent, and if successful, got to keep the fish. Fighters would resort to all kinds of treatments to enable their fish to grab opponents tightly and also waxed their bodies to make it difficult for their opponents to have a firm grip on their fish.