A Pokemon Go player attempts to catch Charmander, one of Pokemon's most iconic creature in New Delhi.

My first experience with ban came when I was 12 years old. I was obsessed with what was known then as “trump cards” – playing cards with details of popular WWE wrestlers on the flip side.

Internet had just started penetrating India and speeds were just a trickle – in the absence of all-consuming social media, my friends and I spend afternoons playing the game, comparing and checking wrestlers’ stats and pushing pressing home work aside.

Exasperated, our parents formed a cabal and took away our cards, threatening to ban the game if we didn’t get back to studies.

More than a decade later, Pokemon Go is a rush of déjà vu – thousands of people, mostly young, spending hours outside work, schools and colleges chasing mythical creatures, walking along familiar and unfamiliar roads, parks, entering buildings and cemeteries.

The biggest craze in decades has whooshed past Twitter and Snapchat in popularity has also attracted notoriety. People have entered homes, frolicked in holocaust memorials and museums and most worryingly, driven into others while engrossed in throwing pokeballs at Rapidash.

A Pokemon Go player attempts to catch Charmander, one of Pokemon's most iconic creature in New Delhi. (AP Photo)

India saw its first Pokemon-triggered accident on Monday when a 26-year-old driver was distracted by the Nintendo game and got hit by an autorickshaw. For once, the usually tardy Mumbai Police proved prescient, having issued a warning to Mumbaikars days ago to keep their eyes on the road and not on the creatures that look like giant rats to the uninitiated.

The rush of accidents has triggered growing calls for banning the viral interactive game. Some countries such as Indonesia have restricted public officials from playing Pokemon Go, while others such as Egypt have clamped a ban. Russia thinks Pikachu and his friends resemble a western intelligence gathering ploy and are mulling restrictions.