“Top Topeh Khameer”

khameer topeh top

dough pat pat

Pat the dough

paneer poreh sheesheh

cheese full of jar

A jar full of cheese

? ballah kee dasteh

? up who hand of

Whose hand is raised?

Bonnie dasteh

Bonnie hand of

(Reply) Bonnie’s hand

This game is played by having someone turn his or her back to everybody else so that he or she cannot see them.  The other people begin patting that person’s back with one hand while saying the rhyme.  When they get to the part, “Whose hand is raised?” one player raises his or her hand up and the person with the back turned must guess whose hand it is.  They continue to do this until one person is left and he or she is the winner.

My mother taught me this game when I was younger and she said she learned it from her own childhood.  She says that all of the kids at school in Iran would play this game during their breaks for fun.  There is no real significance as to why there is “dough” or a “jar of cheese”; they just make the game more interesting by adding in a rhyme.