What if we get a Pakistani version of Squid Game?
- By Syed Omer Nadeem -
- Oct 08, 2021
With an exceptional storyline and massive viewership, the Netflix series Squid Game is currently number one in Pakistan and at least 89 more countries.
Squid Game is the story of adults playing a game, followed by a series of six children’s games to win $40 million in order to pay off their debt and turn their life around. Failure to do so will result in their death.
The Squid Game includes Ddakji for the selection of the players. On the island, the selected players play Red Light Green Light, Ppopgi/Honeycomb Candy, Tug Of War, Marbles, Glass Stepping Stone Bridge, and finally the Squid Game.
We Pakistanis have also grown up playing a few of these games like Red Light Green Light, Tug Of War, and Marbles. But what other games will we choose if we get our own version of Squid Game? Let’s have a look at the list we have made.
1- Hopscotch, aka Langri Paala, requires chalk or something else to draw a few squares and a stone. The goal of this game is to throw the stone into any of those boxes and the participant will pick it up jumping through the boxes with one leg folded.
2- Seven Stones, aka Pittu Garam, requires a pile of seven stones and a makeshift ball to be thrown at them. One team knocks these stones over while the other team members put them back together dodging the ball thrown by the opponent team.
3- Tag or Pakram Pakrai is a very straightforward and simple game where one participant taps on the others to disqualify them from the game. Another version is Baraf Pani where one participant taps others and says “Baraf” (ice) and they stop. Any of the remaining participants could tap the stopped participant by saying “Pani” (water) to bring them back to the game.
4- Chupan Chupai or Hide and Seek is where a participant looks for other participants who are hiding somewhere in order to catch them.
5- Kho-Kho is another version of Tag but it includes a lot of zigzag running, pushing, and standing steadily. Saving yourself and your team from the opponent team is the key to win this game. The key for the opponent team to win is, of course, to catch the members of the other team. You will have to scream the word “Kho-Kho” while pushing your team member so you can catch a breath and the other member can dodge the other team.
6- Albeit being a board game, Ludo has always been very famous in the Sub-continent. Bring a ‘six’ on your dice to make sure the ‘goti‘ is out of the small colored box, to travel all the way to the finish. You can also beat the goti of your opponents by bringing your goti to the exact position as theirs using the dice.
Coming back to the original Squid Game series, Netflix mentioned that it acquired the show back in 2019. It has been dubbed in 13 languages and subtitles are available in 31 languages. It has been the top show on the streaming service as more than 95 percent of the audience comes from outside South Korea.
Which other games do you think can become a part of the Pakistani version of the Squid Game? Have your say in the comments’ section below.