Abstract

Reimagining childhood activities and play remains a creative escape for me in a modern world with limitations and constraints, play is a manifestation of freedom having ties with art as expression (Groos, 1901). Recalling past events and using memory as a strategy to revisit childhood experiences can be an effort to document those plays or toy-making activities. Play is an unestablished concern for many in a culture woven with religious, ritualistic, mythical, and social hierarchical warps and wefts. My childhood memories have deep roots in Baltistan a tourist attraction of northern Pakistan. The tough and remote terrain kept Baltistan a less frequent destination for many. The main highway that connected the region with the rest of the country developed in the mid-80s and brought multiple factors that induced a change in society. We preferred handmade toys; shaped out of junk materials, fresh fruits, dry fruits, sticks, pebbles, stones, or whatever was available around us. 

A quick overview of the literature on childhood play gives a spectrum of ideas. Playing in open spaces and experiencing nature had a vague concept of time. One of the most interesting parts of our leisure or play time was to make toy cars with used canisters and radio batteries (the only alternative to limited electric supplies at that time). Frequently used at that time audio tapes and radios were the media available for entertainment and news updates. The waterwheel was another fascination of the time; we used sticks as its blades and shafts and apples or turnips as the wheel. 

The fact that plays are considered trivial and futile is apparent in Western and Eastern philosophy. The absence of documentation on the play had to do with this triviality or with the circumstances at that time, whatever the reason, it remains a question for me. I am left with memories and materials (to some extent). The sad aspect of it is that I am losing the spatial connection with my past as either those spaces are evolving or losing with time.