Nostalgic Street Games We All Played During the 90s

The sum­mer heat is blaz­ing and being out­doors is no pic­nic. But if you’re a 90s kid, once upon a time, it didn’t mat­ter to you. Back in that far­away land that was your child­hood, where you had no adult respon­si­bil­i­ties, your heat tol­er­ance was next lev­el. Even 45 degrees didn’t mean much when we want­ed to go out and play!

The sum­mer heat is blaz­ing and being out­doors is no pic­nic. But if you’re a 90s kid, once upon a time, it didn’t mat­ter to you. Back in that far­away land that was your child­hood, where you had no adult respon­si­bil­i­ties, your heat tol­er­ance was next lev­el. Even 45 degrees didn’t mean much when we want­ed to go out and play!

I remem­ber when we would gulp down that cus­tom­ary evening glass of milk and run out of the house as soon as the sun had set to play the clas­sic 90s out­door games that all of us knew back then. Which one was your favourite?

1. Pakdam Pakdai (Catch me)

Had to be #1 on the list, right? Pak­dam pak­dai was the eas­i­est pos­si­ble way to have tons of fun. Run­ning crazi­ly around the neigh­bour­hood, get­ting in the way of adults on the street and teas­ing the “den­ner” to come and catch us. This was the one game that would unite kids of all age groups and help us make friends. Noth­ing like run­ning for skinned knees. 🏃🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

2. Maaram Pitti (Dodgeball)

This out­door game from the 90s is the rea­son kids from our gen­er­a­tion are so quick on our feet. You snooze, you…get hit hard. Maaram pit­ti was the DESi ver­sion of dodge­ball, played with a ten­nis ball. And it was super fun, playable any­where, until it hit the near­est aun­ty on her walk…😳

3. Pitthu (Seven Stone)

The crew in Mon­ey Heist could’ve learned a thing or two from watch­ing 90s kids play­ing pit­thu! This out­door game was our first intro­duc­tion to think­ing strate­gi­cal­ly. One team would throw the ball at a pile of sev­en flat stones while the oth­er would scram­ble to put it back togeth­er with­out get­ting hit. Lit­tle known fact: this game is so well-loved across coun­tries that there’s actu­al­ly a Lagori World Cup in which over 30 nations par­tic­i­pate. 

4. Gully Cricket

We were a gen­er­a­tion raised on Ten­dulkar, Dravid and Gan­gu­ly. So of course gul­ly crick­et had to make it onto our list. Crick­et was one of the favourite out­door games in the 90s, and we played it EVERYWHERE. Smashed win­dows and angry uncles could­n’t stop us! Why?

5. Chupan Chupai (Hide and Seek)

That’s right. All that chu­pan chu­pai in our child­hood meant that our hid­ing skills were right on point. The best part was yelling “dhap­pa!” before the den­ner got to say “I spy!” 

Kancha (marbles)

Kan­cha was a clas­sic 90s out­door game that’s near­ing extinc­tion. It’s where we first learned what “street cred” real­ly means. We were nev­er proud­er than when we earned the best mar­bles on the street. 

Kho-Kho

This out­door child­hood game luck­i­ly still lives on as a com­pet­i­tive sport. And it sure brought out the com­pet­i­tive side in us. Sit­ting on your knees with your team­mates fac­ing the oth­er side, wait­ing for some­one to tap your back and say, “Kho!” In that instant, you have to be ready to go.

Dog and the Bone

Dog and the bone sounds like a sweet name, until you play it with a vet­er­an of the 90s out­door games life. The intense eye star­ing between the two “dogs” while they cir­cle around the han­ky or bot­tle that was the “bone” remains mem­o­rable to this day

 Aankh Micholi (blindfold)

This game was­n’t just fun, it also had laugh val­ue. Watch­ing the den­ner walk­ing around blind­fold­ed try­ing to grab you could be hilar­i­ous! And the per­pet­u­al ques­tion while blind­fold­ing some­one — “oye, how many fin­gers?”