Board Walking...(part 1)

I spent the early 8 years of my life in Saudi Arabia. I lived in a small town called Dammam. The Bangladeshi community there wasn't that big, and the first embassy school was not established before 1988. As I didn't have friends to hang out with, I spent my childhood with matchbox cars and an Atari 800XL console . I also had a Monopoly board. But Monopoly was a game which couldn't be played without a partner. I think someone gifted me that board on my Birthday. I was wondering how to play and stuff (mind you, I was only 7 years old then), and then came the savior.

One friend of my dad didn't have a job at that time, and he decided to stay in our place and pursue the job-hunt from there. During this period, which lasted more than a month, we played Monopoloy and spent wonderful times. He always picked up the car stating "A car is what I'd really like to have now, so I'm picking the car". I dunno what made me such a humble kid, but I'd always ask him first to select a token. Here's a secret--on every instance, I wanted to pick the car, and I wished that he'd select some other token, for at least once. But nope, that never happened. Was I being sympathetic towards a jobless guy? Hehe, probably not. Maybe some child psychologist would like to take a deeper look into this.

After so many years, while writing this, I am realizing that I actually loved the uncle a lot. He was really fond of cars, and his favorite brand was Mazda. He even had an imaginary wife, called "Mazedabegom". He used to say that he'll introduce me to his wife, soon. But that never happened. I never thought that it's a lie, or a joke. We kinda lost contact after leaving KSA in 1989.

After another long break, I got to meet him again. He was now settled in BD, and he invited us in his true marriage. I almost forgot the Mazdabegom thingy, but it all came back after receiving the wedding invitation. I particularly remember this wedding, because this person embraced his mother and started a hysterical cry; just before entering the car which was supposed to take him and his wife to his home!

According to my mother, she never saw a guy cry on the day of marriage before. Actually marriage can be a crying incident for a guy. Because, after marriage, a son can't remain that close to his mother. Wife becomes first preference, and I've seen a lot of people acting weirdly with their parents for the sake of keeping their wives happy. This is sad. The parent's should also be less cruel towards the girls who leave their homes and join a totally new family. My mother had to go through a lot of obstacles. I've closely observed both families, and I must say, one is the opposite of the other. It must've been really hard for her to adopt with all the eccentricities of my dad's family.

As an example, in my mother's, Daal is eaten at the end of a meal. The sequence is like this:

1) Rice with dry vegetables,

2) Addition of vegetable curry

3) Fried Fish/Fish curry/Meat/Egg

4) Daal and rice only (none of the above gets accompanied with this combo)

In dad's:

1) Rice, Daal, vegetable curry (they never eat dry vegetables)

2) Fish curry/fried fish/meat/egg + daal

So my mother definitely had a tough time adopting to the fact that daal can come first! I can go either way, but whenever I tried taking daal in the beggining of a meal at my mother's, my maternal uncles would give me weird and surprised looks. As if, eating daal is a taboo!

Similary, at my dad's, I'd get weird looks if I rejected a daal offer(!) at the beginning of a meal.

Anyways, this was not actually what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about board games and their infleunce on my life (lol). I spent a major portion of my childhood nibbling with fake cash, which made me really comfortable with real money (later on)(I believe).

That was not a great training. I spend way too much :s

So my first 8 years saw only one board game, i.e. Monopoly. I don't really remember much details, but the most expensive and sought after property was called "Mayfair" or something like that. I used to pick up the Hat token, but I used to crave for the Car. When I did get the chance to play with others (which never happened in KSA), I always picked the car.

The car is my favorite Monopoly token!

Will resume later...