My life growing up in the quiet little town of Tinsukia was unlike many little children of my age then. Me and my brother, Pritam, were always introverts and normally shunned going out, and hence never had many ‘friends’ as you may say. Deep within our cozy world of video games, comics, animes and board games we were content. After a few years in our solitary life came another member, Vishal. He moved in into our house with his family as our new tenants. We were still in our early school years, me being the eldest, my brother second, while Vishal, the youngest. Yet we formed a unique bond, and a very geeky bond that was. Aloof from any other friends we grew up together on the same geeky sustenances, which we always found missing in many children in our peers and neighbourhood we knew.
As I stated, ours was a very different childhood. Rather than going out into the playgrounds and playing games or enjoying with the other children (it still wasn’t the age of cell phones and tablets), we were busy exchanging our comics, which ranged from Tinkle to DC as well as Marvel. Debates and discussions related to these fictional characters and who was better than who was always a heated session. The times we spent in exchanging Nintendo video game cassettes and trying to beat each other’s high score were other such trivials. Debates also ranged from what configuration supported which game to the newer models of graphics card in the market. Playing PC games was a great deal for us. We gathered at our house or Vishal’s house with his elder brother Hirock. As one person played the others assisted in either shouting out at the top of one’s voice what they had to do while another was typing the cheatcodes, while the other’s role was to come up with ideas of how to complete the level quickly.
Then came the era of Pokémon and Beyblade, when we collected ‘tazos’ after ‘tazos’ of every Pokémon we could find. We created various games (we always had a game for every such things) with these tazos. A Pokémon fight game was created and we spent long duration of times arguing what type of Pokémon beats what type, who had advantages over who. As Beyblade arrived, we changed our fights to beyblade battles. Scavenging plates, saucers, even shoe boxes for the perfect beystadium was how we went about. I still remember, us thinking of making our own beyblade club and challenging other kids from the city, and it still makes me smile.
We were also ingenious enough to device our own secret signal to call each other from one house to the other, for a meeting or other occasions. The signals comprised of different coded sounds for calling, for telling one was busy, for emergency, and so on.
We were also ingenious enough to device our own secret signal to call each other from one house to the other, for a meeting or other occasions. The signals comprised of different coded sounds for calling, for telling one was busy, for emergency, and so on.
The next was our obsession with Duel Masters Trading cards. While many children now I see play cards (the regular one) we had no idea about those or what were the various card games. We engaged ourselves in the game of Duel Master, summoning monsters, casting spells, breaking shields and making our own perfect deck.
I left Tinsukia seven years ago to come to a foreign place with new people but it is hard to just find such geeky people, for people like us can be found not outside but in our own spaces devoid of other social contacts. Two years later my brother joined in and this year Vishal, and I believe we got our geek club back again.
If what I have said did not make any sense to you, you do realize “what” we were, and if you understood, you may just be like one of us. The Big Bang Theory came a few years ago and people have been laughing with the antics of a few nerdy and geeky friends and their life ever since. We on the other hand lived that life and we are proud to call ourselves as Geeks, surrounded by our games, comics, trading cards and our geeky jokes which no one but us understands. GEEKS FOREVER…
I left Tinsukia seven years ago to come to a foreign place with new people but it is hard to just find such geeky people, for people like us can be found not outside but in our own spaces devoid of other social contacts. Two years later my brother joined in and this year Vishal, and I believe we got our geek club back again.
If what I have said did not make any sense to you, you do realize “what” we were, and if you understood, you may just be like one of us. The Big Bang Theory came a few years ago and people have been laughing with the antics of a few nerdy and geeky friends and their life ever since. We on the other hand lived that life and we are proud to call ourselves as Geeks, surrounded by our games, comics, trading cards and our geeky jokes which no one but us understands. GEEKS FOREVER…