The Montfort Chronicles

One of the things that made Montfort and its students great is the creativity and ingenuity of the games we played. Our pioneers sure chalked out some real whacky games so that we could make the most of our break times. And the greatest thing about most of these games is that they made great use of the school buildings and structures; they sorta crafted the fabric of the games around the infrastructure of Montfort, thus making them unique. Now a lot of these games are played around the world by kids, but a few of them are truly original and restricted exclusively to the grounds of Monty. I know kids from other boarding schools like Lovedale, Doon and others, and trust you me, those kids had seriously deprived childhoods and they aint heard the first thing bout Holly Golly or Bathroom Cleaner. We Monty mothafuckas had it good.

Right until the time we moved out of Mayfield, most of us spent every minute of our break times getting sweaty and dirty playing one of these games. We’d go to class panting, ties loose and shirts unbuttoned till Hookens or Pinheiro or Nigli noticed us and sent us to the bogs to wash up. Saturday afternoons, which was our time to do whatever the fuck we wanted ( this was long before Princi instituted his gulag regime ) were completely dedicated to playing these games and the blazing sun did nothing to stifle our young, foolish vigour. We used to be like fucken androids; three hours of intense play would do nothing to us but work up a light sweat. Now the tar in the lungs has gotten me to the point where a trip to buy groceries leaves me panting like I just blew my load after an intense session of lovemaking. But I digress. Here’s a rundown on a few of the games we played in our time.

Seven Stones: This one’s a classic, and hardly unique at that. People the world over play it and the idea is to inflict pain with a tennis ball under the pretense of detracting opponents from building a tower with seven flat stones. We played this one quite a bit. I remember playing it in the Charmettes during games time one day when it had rained during warm-up and everybody went to dorm and only 5 or 6 of us turned up at our field.

Holly Golly: This one’s a classic and an original Monty as far as I can tell. Some bright ass mothafucka looked at Seven Stones and went, “ what the fuck we need em stones for nigga. I just wanna bring the pain to them haters.” So began the ultimate game of hit and run. There was this one year when my batch went crazy over this shit. We’d play in that outdoor badminton court near the junior block common toilets, every lunch break for months on end. Sadly that place is demolished now. We even had loosely shaped gangs and then it became like a war. People used to get thrashed and return for more the next day. Damn, we had some real soldiers in the ‘hood then. Blood was spilt and ultimately Augustine ( of Belinda fame ) abolished the game and captured every tennis ball he could lay his hands on.

Gilli: I used to think this one was unique to Montfort till I saw Lagaan. Apparently we Indians have been playin this one for centuries. I remember it used to be hard to get good gilli sticks, so if we found one, we’d treasure it. I also remember I brought this game home and was playing it with my innocent li’l cousin and the gilli stick flew into her eye and her momma thrashed my butt good.

Bathroom Cleaner: This is the cream of the crop, the absolute puppies privates of all Montfort games. We played this in the first field gallery. There was no other place you could play it really. It also involved hittin folks with tennis balls but was a whole lot more fun. As to the origins of the name of the game, I am totally clueless and would appreciate any efforts to shed light on the situation. And don’t try telling me Ali Muthu invented it.

Steps: This is the first game little Montfortian tykes got introduced to. Twohands, onehand, twohandoneclap, onehandoneclap, and so on. We played this every break on the Mayfield main steps till they started capturing our tennis balls. Talking bout those steps, I must mention that sliding down those step railings was totally kickass. Those railings had no paint on them at all and were perfect for sliding.

Oblikutty: This one, I think was a game only those of my generation would be familiar with. In essence a running and catching game, we played it by jumping over the little half-walls just outside the Mayfield auditorium. It’s probably died out by now. Shame!

Country: The game of world conquest played with a stick and square countries drawn in the mud. A perennial classic and well-loved by my generation. You had to forge alliances with your neighbours so that they’d allow you to step in their territory while annexing new lands.

D.O.N.K.E.Y : All you football lovers in da house, this one’s for you. Played in the field in Mayfield just near the 7th std field using the huge stone wall that adjourned the junior block tennis courts. It involved kicking the football against the wall before it came to rest.

Book cricket: Who says sports gotta be outdoor? Book cricket is how most of us got through the really boring night study. All you needed was a numbered book and a pen to keep score. Book soccer was also quite popular, but we couldn’t play during study that often since we needed to be more discreet.

This list is far from exhaustive but time has dulled my memory. Ze olde brain is not what it once was. If y’all remember any other games do write in. Ok, question of the week time: In holly golly, when somebody was too close to you to hit him with the ball, you just knocked him on the head with it. There’s a term for this knock and I can’t remember for the life of me. I asked some other batchmates and they’re equally clueless. Anybody?