8 peer groups I had to put up with!

School was great, right?

Who does’nt remember those great times, when everything was so simple and care free.

Bunking classes…tape ball matches all day, bicycle races…etc

Life was simple and fun.

*siiiiighhh*

That was some good shit. And who can forget one’s school friends? That’s the real deal! Capital B Capital F Capital F…add another Captial F if you’re a guy, cuz you’d just learnt the ‘F’ word and wanted to use it with everything…Fuck yeaahh!!

But level with me guys, it would have been perfect if it weren’t for those ‘peer pressure’ groups, right? I mean, let’s be honest, how many of us here just had to join em to save our asses from a daily dose of ‘Atomic Wedgies’- that’s the one where they put the waistband over your head, to be fair, it’s still an urban legend, but it sure gave me many sleepless butt clenching nights.

How about a show of hands for all those stupid groups and gangs we HAD to join to save our asses and blend in? Ok, that last statement was just rhetorical guys, we’re not actually starting a ‘hands across Pakistan’ campaign and neither is this a ‘Wedge victim anonymous’ group-hug sorta cheese fest….geez!!!

I’d never wanna leave my school days, if it weren’t for those damn ‘peer pressure’ groups. Turns out, no matter how much you mature, you can never outgrow those freaks. Here’s a list of the various sub-species of the wierdos I had the pleasure/misfortune, depending on your own preference, I ran into:

____________________________________________________________________________________________

HAND SLAPPERS R US

What’d the five fingers say to the face?

Have you seen ‘ the Todd?’ in Scrubs? The guy has a very pronounced OCD; he cannot ignore a hand, he HAS to slap it. It seemed pretty hilarious, and for a while me and some of my friends even tried copying it. Unfortunately, we realized hand slapping is some sorta initiatization into a fraternity of bozos that love exchanging lewd jokes and expect the token hand slap at the end of each rendition. And once you’re in, theres no going back, no matter how many slaps you turn down, they’re like the Postal service man! It never fails, it just keeps coming. Theres always the next level; there’s leg slapping and then there’s chest bumping. But the latter’s an almost mythical degree that has as yet to be mastered by save the very fewest of the few, like Paes and Bhupati or the Bryan Brothers.

But no matter where you go,once you’ve slapped, there’s always another hand waiting to slap/be slapped. So get your lifelong supply of handlotions, cuz this time its for a good cause.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE ‘BHAI JEE’ GANG

Imagine Vito Corleone leaving New York and settling in Pakistan. Consequently the lingo and the mannerisms have to change a bit in order to merge with the local customs and language. Unfortunately these guys are still stuck in some sort of a time warp or parallel universe where every fucking sentence MUST start with ‘Bhai jee’…Exhibit A:

Bhai jee where were you last night?

Bhai jee I was stuck at work.

Bhaaaaaaiiiiii jeee *to express incredulity* I watched Sultan Rahi’s movie last night, Bhai jee it was TABAHEEE (there is NO other word to express joy, even your dad is a tabahee if he gets you that latest BMX cycle.)

Excuse me while I handle my snake… not THAT you pervs!

The only available comeback in the ‘bhai jee’ vocab for tabahee ..is…wait for it…KAMAAAL!! So the next time you run into a tabahee freak , you ‘kamal’ the living crap outta him!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE LUSH-PUSH GROUP

This one’s fairly obvious and pretty well known to all the Karachi boys. A distant cousin of the Bhai jee group from the mother’s father’s midget brother’s side, these guys are into the good things in life. Me thinks they’ve got a fixation on luxuriant locales for some reason. To overcome the lack of greenery, they compensate their vocab with a lotta ‘Lush-push’ (read: amazing, excellent!) words. And if you’re ‘one of the guys’ or in Mafia lingo, if you dream of getting ‘made’ , you need to earn your ‘mamay-ness’. Yep, that’s right, the ultimate rank of the brother-hood is ‘Lush mamay’ , that’s like if you’re Santa Claus…. on Christmas…high… getting laid.

All outsiders, until they get their ‘mamay’ badges are either Bhonssnuts, Matarways and Maarkhors. As long as you’re not addressed by these terms, you’re flying under the radar man, its all cool, watch out for the paan spit!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE SOOTA GROUP

Life’s literally a drag for this group. Everything revolves around the fag (not THAT kind though) for them. Whether it be waking up, taking a dump, eating or sleeping- have a light, will travel. These guys will always have your back, most probably ‘cuz they think you stash your cigs there or something. This group has the lowest defection rates, again ‘cuz most of the inmates either die or can’t stop ‘puffing the magic dragon’. Rumor has it that there are double agents going by various names under the Nicotine Patches organization and its sister brand E-Cig, working inside though, who are trying to convert some of the die hard fanatics.

You’re welcome to join this group, but may I suggest just auditing the course for a couple of years as a Second-hand smoker first? And be sure to look up the Advanced career options in this area; drug addiction and cancer. By now, have a nice life. :p

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE PINKY GROUP

Nope its not a group for fair complexioned people, you’re thinking Fair and Lovely, aren’t you? This group consists of those friends that you just can’t get enough of. And since us hardy, sturdy, masculine hunks have no other way of showing our platonic love, what do we do? Why we hold hands, no wait, that sounds gay. We hold pinkies. Yeah now that’s some hardcore male bonding happening.

This is an exclusive club and not anyone can just walk in and grab the nearest pinky, unless you wanna get an ass-whooping. You have to be really manly and oozing testosterone levels that are off the chart, a big moustache always comes in handy to convince the world that you’re the next desi Hulk Hogan. Add some chin high flowing chest hair and you’re good to go. Now flaunt that pinky!

Correction: Pinky and crotch grab group.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE POONDI GROUP

The poond’s are just regular guys… with no life. They are into girls, cuz cmon who is’nt? Where they excel is in the self disillusion that the feeling is mutual. And ‘tera bhai’ by which they mean themselves- yeah in severe cases they refer to themselves in the third person- is one step away from going out with EVERY girl you point to. Whats that step you ask? Why going and talking to them ofcourse. But
that’s where ‘tera bhai’ draws the line. That never happens, other than that, ‘teri soch hai, aur bhai ki approach hai’

Thair ja bhai nay is pose main bari bachian phasain hain.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE WAAZZZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BOYS

WAAZAAAA… needless to say.

Aaaaahhhh, a timeless classic. Now this is a boys boy gang. It has not only withstood the test of time but has consistently updated its lingo. Like, I was pleasantly surprised when last week I ‘wazzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaa’ed my kid brother and he ‘Izzzzzzzzaaaaaaaaoooooon’ed me back. Apparently the brotherhood of the knuckleheads has decided that the official salutation of the group has to be changed from the archaic ‘whats up’ to ‘its on’. Sign of a devoted member of the community is how long you can hold your breath and extend the greeting. Others gems that you need to know to be one of the boys:

1) Easy ho ja———Relax, take a chill pill

2) Miss kera de——Ignore him/her

3) Laaaaaivaaaaaaal——-Level! Too good..(As an added category, there are degrees, like level 1,2 uptill 10 being the highest. I have yet to meet witness anything beyond level 7 so far. On the flipside, the lowest level is a ‘yard’, explained below.)

4) Fukinshytemaan——–(that’s just a bad Irish accent) Fucking shit maan!

5) Tikkkiteeezy——— (Pretty straightforward, if you don’t get it, please refer to #2)

6) Yard——–short for junkyard.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

THE CODENAME GANG

These are the guys who would one day build codes and program some cool shit. But that would have to wait until they could pass puberty. For now they are the male version of the gossip mongers, and since they can’t be seen doing it in public they have devised an elaborate scheme of using codewords and nicknames for every person of interest. Some masterpieces of the golden age that I
have been a part too are:

1) Bombers—(two hotties who were in the gang’s radars, individually they were called….*drumroll* Hiroshima and Nagasaki)

2) S.A.T—-She’s all that, sadly she had a boyfriend, H.A.T, we HAD to name him that, cuz he did have the girl (pretty inspired thinking, right?)

3) Gutter-sitter—-I feel for her, sadly the first time she came under the spotlight, she had been sitting atop a man-hole cover, so it had to be that.

And so it goes on, since time immemorial. No man is an island. And in such a densely populated country as ours, it is almost impossible not to be part of any group/gang/code. So until next time, be seeing you Bhai jee, have a lush push week, *hand slap*.