Memory Game

One of my childhood relics which we still use is a small but delightful game which we call the 'memory game.' It consists of a small army of square cards - with 59 pairs of brightly coloured pictures. The cards are turned over to conceal their respective images and vigorously mixed around. The players then take turns to turn over two of the cards. If both cards have the same image they keep the pair. Otherwise they turn them over while the other players try hard to remember what is where.

I don't remember when we got our family set - but it was at least 30 years ago. The cards are clearly worn. Though many of the whimsical pictures continue to delight - this German set has a major advantage for us Eichers: the back of the cards - which is supposed to be a uniform pattern - is anything but. A number of the cards have clear wear and tear which over the years we have memorized (inadvertently of course! - I am shocked that you might think otherwise). On the occasions that we have played with guests we have sometimes purposely not taken cards because we knew what was beneath them.

It is clearly time for a new set of 'memory cards.'

My mind recently went back to a magical summer when I was 8 years old. Dad took me on a special trip. He was visiting friends in Sweden and Finland - and speaking at local churches. I was to go along with him as a special treat. Mum, Stefan and Premi stayed back in Germany - with my grandmother I think.

We drove up through Denmark and then took the ferry to Sweden. There we drove on to the Strom family. They had been in India with OM in the 'early days' and had a son called Stefan who was my age. We hit it off well. So well that I did not want to go on with my Dad to Finland. I wanted to stay with my friend. Dad allowed me to and I spent what must have been about a week or so with the Stroms.

It was a magical time. Full of cycling in the forests and picking blue berries, of eating and eating (more than kids in an Enid Blyton book), of practicing 'pole vault' in Stefan Strom's back yard, and of watching the Wimbledon finals on a black and white TV - a group of fanatical Swedes cheering on the victory of their favourite son Bjorn Borg - while one caucasian Indian quietly supported Jimmy Connors - not that I had ever seen a tennis match in my life before.

In the midst of all of this we visited the home of a lady nearby who spoke German. She had a home-made 'memory game' - made with trains from a German toy train catalogue - stuck on pieces of cardboard. I have always wanted to make my own set - and recently was spurred on by seeing a German photographer do so with pictures of World Cup footballs.

Then the thought came to me - how about doing it with photos. Crop them to squares - fit them in a word document table - and then just print it out - stick it on cardboard - cut them up and then we have our own game!

And so the deed was done. Two sheets of 30 pictures. 4 cm by 4 cm. Down to the local cyber-cafe for a colour printout. Glued onto cardboard. Cut up and played.

Here is one of the photo sheets (you can click it for a slightly larger view):


Family pics. So many to choose from. This sheet of 30 is mainly of pictures from our recent Mussoorie visit. The next sheet of 30 went back a bit in time - and included some baby pictures of Sheba and me as well - as well as almost all the members of our immediate family.

As we played the 'memory game' it took on a new flavour - we were also remembering the people and experiences that we had enjoyed together. Memory both at the level of trying hard to remember where the different pairs of the 120 cards were - as well as remembering precious times and people!