You Know You Grew Up In Pakistan During The 1990s When...

View of 1990 Karachi City

• Evenings on STN/NTM were the highlight of your day.

• The Jetsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Captain Planet were dubbed in Urdu.

• You played “Kings” in school (the game where the first person to yell “Kings” would try to step on someone’s foot. Then that person would try to step on someone else’s foot and so forth).


 • Playground feminism took form in the shape of “Queens” (essentially the same thing as “Kings”) and “Kish,” that weird jumping game that involved two teams and a loop of elastic (usually made out of a few shalwars’ worth of elastic tied together, snuck secretly because the mums would get sick of their daughters wasting a perfectly good roll of elastic.) 


 • Guys only ever played cricket and football, depending on what world cup was going on at the time. 


 • The only co-ed sport that was ever played was dodge ball (called Dodge the Ball) and girls were actually pretty good at it. 


 • You played "Dark Room", "Tilo-Express", "Oonch Neech", "Chor-Sipahi" and "Chupan Chupai". 


• You decided conflicts not by rock-paper-scissors, but by "Pugan-Pugaai", "In Pin Safety Pin", or "Akar-Bakar-Bambay-Bo". 


• 5 words: Assoo-Panjoo-Haar-Kabootar-Doli. 


 • Anyone owning a real Barbie or Hot Wheels was a source of envy and admiration. 


 • “Bil Patori naasa chori aadhi mithi aadhi kori I’m sorry I’m sorry” means something to you. As do “ZAAAAAYYYMEEENAAAA!!!” and “Mein kon hoon, mein kya karoon, mein kiss ko khaaon” and “Ulloo ulloo hello, ulloo ulloo hello.” 


 • You wished you were Imran or Moattar from Ainak Waala Jin. 


 • You had nightmares about Bil Patori and Haamoon Jadoogar. 


 • You drank Frost juice with Super Crisp chips. And then when you were done, you’d chuck the juice box on the floor and jump on it to burst it. 


 • "Idiot," "Shut Up" or "Badtameez" was your first cuss word. 


 • There was never a line at the canteen. Instead everyone drove the canteen wala mad by screaming at the top of their lungs. 


 • You were cool if you could finish a whole pack of Crunchies or Slanties without showing any signs of weakness, including drinking water afterwards. 


 • You picked out only the chips from your mum’s Nimco. 


 • You remember RC Cola and how no one liked it. 


 • It was taboo for guys to drink Mirinda/Fanta because it was a GIRL’s drink. 


 • You idolized Imran Khan even though he was retired when you were 2 or 3, and wiped your face with your Pepsi bottle or Frost juice because he did it in that ad. 


 • Wasim Akram's "mein cigarette nahi peeta" ad made half ur generation vow to never smoke (the other half just missed out on good stuff). 


 • You had to ask “Ma’am/Miss may I come in” before entering a class, and you had to stand up to answer questions during a lesson. 


 • Cordless phones were the coolest things. 


 • You went crazy when your dad bought his first ever mobile, and you wouldn’t shut up about it to your friends. 


 • You carried around a cordless phone in your bag/pocket pretending it was a mobile phone, because heck, they both looked the same back then didn’t they? 


 • You begged your parents for a walkman and then bought tapes of Junaid Jamshed, or if you were really cool, Junoon. 


 • You went to a Junaid Jamshed concert in a PAF building or a Junoon concert in PC. 


 • You remember Fakhr-e-Alam hosting the Top Ten on NTM and his “Bhangra Rap” was always #1. • #2 was “Jaadoo Ka Charagh” by Awaz and #3 was “Dohlna” by Shehzad Roy.. #4 was “Mann de Moaj” by Hadiqa Kayani, the only cool female-singer in Pakistani (and that was her only song for a long time, till she sang Dupatta Mera Malmal Ka.”) 


 • You were really sad when Awaz split up 'Dil Dil Pakistan'. And later you took sides between Haroon and Fakhir, and if you liked one you had to hate the other. 


 • You remember celebrating when they changed the weekends to Saturday and Sunday because it meant Friday was a half-day. 


 • You remember crying because of it if you were older, since the schools would make you come on Saturday for a full day anyway. 


 • You played Sega-Mega Drive, Atari and Super Nintendo. 


 • You played Mario Brothers like there was no tomorrow. 


 • You remember the Nintendo game where you had to shoot ducks with an actual gun-shaped joystick and thought it was the most amazing thing ever. 


 • Your life was never the same again when your first Windows 95 was set up in your house. 


 • You played Dave 1 and thought level three was the hardest thing in the world. Then you upgraded to Lion King (probably from a Power Games CD bought out in the street). 


 • You shafted Polka Ice Cream when Walls became popular. And yes, admit it, you used to wait for the Ice Cream wala in the afternoon and bought Paddle Pops from him. 


 • Walls wasn't as good as the Challi Walla (end there were rumors that people loved them so much because there was chars in the masala). 


 • The boys watched Captain Majid (some daring girls did too) and the girls watched Jem (so did some guys, for that matter, and hid their interest under the pretext of making fun of their sisters). 


 • Cartoon Network showed good stuff like Johnny Bravo and Johnny Quest before crap like Cow and Chicken ruined everything. 


 • You had "kutti" (pinkie finger) with your enemies and "sulli" (index+middle finger) with your friends. 


 • Our idols were either the guys from Alpha Bravo Charlie or the guys from Teen Bata Teen. 


 • It's "copy," "rubber," and "dustbin." Or rather, "duss-bin." And "desk" was once "dex." 


 • Your childhood was over when they made you stop using pencils and start using fountain pens. And you always made a mess filling the ink. 


 • You wanted to be on the Crystal Maze, The Legends of the Hidden Temple and such game shows. 


 • The coolest clapping games were "Cham Cham Cham," "O Pillar," "Zig Zag Zoo." 


 • You were on the top of the food chain if you were made monitor (and you very easily abused the power too, by chucking chalk and dusters at people). 


• Sit/Stand, Murghi, and sitting in the bad-kid section was the usual punishment. And the good girls would sit with the bad boys in a vain attempt to civilize them.