15 ideas
Aappadi thaappadi Maharashtra
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16
All the children squat on the floor and place their palms down on the floor. They chant ‘ Aappadi thaappadi... gattup’, with each word in the sequence being uttered by the next child. At the end of it, the one who chants the last word catches the ear of the child to her right. With her left hand, she holds on to the hand of her neighbour on her left. All the other hands are still facing palms down. The singing begins again, one word at a time and in sequence. The game goes on until all the hands are occupied - either holding other hands or other ears. Then they slowly rise as a group without breaking the chain and sway as they chant collectively one last time. As there is a high chance of the chain collapsing, the children burst into gleeful laughter.
Aappadi Thaappadi gulachi paapadi Dhammak ladoo, tael padu, Telangiche ekach paan. Dhar ga paby hacch kaan Chau mau, pitalitle pani peou. Ek handa, gattup, don hande gattup
Muthu Kuruchi Tamil Nadu
The children are divided into two teams that take turns in either ‘hiding’ or ‘guessing’. The team that has to guess goes away to a different room. The hiding team selects one child to be hidden as ‘muthukuruchi’ and another child to be the watcher. The child to be hidden is covered under a sheet. The rest of the team, other than the watcher, goes into hiding. The ‘guessing team’ is now called to guess who is hidden under the sheet. They chant ‘muthukuruchi, muthukuruchi’. To this, the child under the sheet responds by making a clicking gutteral sound in his throat. Based on this sound, the other team has to correctly identify who is hidden under the sheet. The ‘guessing team’ is given three chances to figure out who the hidden child is. If they succeed, then the ‘muthukuruchi’ reveals himself and tries to catch a member of the ‘guessing team’ as they run to a pre-selected safety zone. If the team either fails to guess correctly or one of its members is caught, then it remains as the guessing team. Else, the two teams switch roles.