Pixistan Games

Games of Punjab

پنجاب

Punjab is Pakistan's most populous province and the province whose games are best documented, which makes it both the easiest place to start and the easiest place to over-generalise from. Kabaddi belongs here in its circle form, played at village tournaments through the winter; kikli is a Punjabi girls' game of paired spinning; tent pegging runs on flat fields after harvest; and Lahore was for decades the centre of competitive kite flying in spring. Street games — gilli danda, kanchay, stapoo, pittu garam — are played across the province in versions that shift name and detail between districts. This page collects every game on this site with a documented presence in Punjab, and each linked entry states which of its claims come from which source. Games appearing here are not exclusive to Punjab; where the same game is played in Sindh or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under a different name, that name is recorded on the game page with its own region tag.

More on this region in the Pixistan library.