Uma's Corner

What provokes me to write this article is the game that is doing the rounds in most of the households. The handsets owned by parents are no longer theirs and are grabbed by the children to play games.  I tend to draw some similarities of this virtual game Vs the literal game.  The literal game, which I have been watching or rather witnessing for over a decade now.

The name has different meanings for different people and for different age groups. Well, for an ordinary person like me, who is not into games and phone is only a device to make calls and send messages and sometimes to access FaceBook, Temple-Run would mean running to a temple, which is what my father does.

His day starts at 4:00am in the morning, even in the extreme winters in Delhi. He takes bath and runs to the temple, where he works as a Manager. And, mind you, he does this every day of the month, throughout the year. He does not have weekly-offs. Obviously, God does not get weekly-offs or vacations. 🙂

Wonder if somebody outside our family noticed this and picked up the idea of developing it in virtual world with the title “Temple Run”, which is an “endless running” video game. Don’t take me seriously :-). The company will sue me and it will become a copyright issue :-). So, like Shahrukh Khan, who plays G.One in Ra.One, the runner here in this literal game is my dad. He is no less than an hero – My hero.. And, the levels that my father has to cross is no less than the levels crossed in the actual game. My 94 year-old grand-mother, who is still very active and gives me a complex, poses a challenge everyday for him and he has to solve them. My mother is resigned to the fact and accepts that the temple is his first wife. That’s his temple-run…

The virtual game, Temple-Run, is so popular amongst youngsters.. My 4 year old son and 10 year old daughter continue to run in the temple, I mean, keep playing this game and are experts now in it that they cross all kinds of levels.. does one ever reach the temple is the question..? My father should be very proud of his grand-children. After all, some genes have got transferred to them through him… 🙂

So, to each one, one’s own temple run.. 🙂