The waves watch with bated breath: will the lanky lad score a boundary? They crumble in excitement onto the shore the moment he smashes the ball far beyond. He prances about the sand with his bat, grinning, “I’m Prem. Prem Kumar,” he informs us. Part of a cricket team from Nochi Kuppam, he is among the many children who run to the beach straight after school — the seaside is their playground.
For the children of fisherfolk, the seaside doubles as a cricket field, volleyball court, football field and more. They were born here, play here and will perhaps work here too. Eighteen-year-old Selva says that he goes to sea when his father needs help. “Boys whose fathers own a boat learn to handle the boat and net early on,” he says. His gang, however, has no intentions of going to sea when they grow up.
Selva, for instance, dreams of becoming a football player. “I want to be just like Ronaldinho.” Prem wants to become a cricketer. “Do you know Pollard? I play like him,” he says with a straight face. Surya aims to become a Kohli while Sudhakar, a Bravo. A little beyond Dooming Kuppam, a bunch of boys kicks-up dust in a volleyball match. Some distance away, four older boys play carom placing the board on a table on the sand. Behind the lighthouse, another bunch of kuppam boys is engaged in a football match.
The sand has been hardened to form a pitch by the cricketers while those who play volleyball and football have erected goalposts out of bamboo poles. Sport forms a major part of the lives of these children; after all, they have the biggest playground in the city. They play far from the crowd at the beach, with not much but the moored boats for company.
If there’s a game that’s more popular in the seaside than cricket, it’s goli. Mugilan and gang play run and catch when they decide to retire for a game of goli. The boys have come up with fascinating games with strict rules to adhere to with nothing but a few marbles. “In achi jaan, one player throws the goli on the ground. The other tries to hit it with his goli,” explains Mugilan. “The winner gets to keep the opponent’s goli.”
The boys run about the sand barefoot with the transparent, emerald-green golis jingling in their shorts pockets — with chinks and cuts all over them, these marbles are witness to years of goli madness. There are games called ‘Toni Raja’, ‘pathiruvadhu’, ‘kabam’, ‘thuruppu kadan’… each of them different in the way the goli is held by the fingers and the number of golis used. With its vast expanse of sand as a cushion, the seaside is ideal for goli.
“We also love to play pambaram,” says 12-year-old Vicky. “The games change with the season. It all depends on the one boy who first takes out his goli or cricket bat. All the boys in the kuppam will follow suit,” he adds. The girls? What do they play? “We don’t play with the girls,” says Vicky, frowning. “They don’t like to play with us too.”
Far from the ruckus, seven-year-old Nishanthini and Ashwitha play by themselves on the sand. They use a moored boat as a slide — they clamber onto it and jump squealing on the sand. “I like jumping off the kappal (ship),” says Nishanthini. “We also make cakes out of sand and cut it,” she adds. “But Ashwitha,” she giggles, “likes the games boys play.” The feisty five-year-old grins with her hair in the wind. “Yes, I like goli,” she announces. “That’s all I like to play.”
