PAKISTAN

the fingers on my right hand are stained yellow from turmeric, red chili, and mango pickle.

my stomach is full of paratha, omelettes, and chicken karahi. my blood is thick from bottomless chai served by the less fortunate souls who are grateful to have such a good job in the kitchen of a prominent family. my nostrils are coated black from the smog produced by what seems to be a billion honda motorcycles and the illegal burning of tires and crops. my ears ring with the sound of wedding drums, bagpipes (yes, in the middle east), horns honking incessantly. my heart is full from aunt’s adopting me as their honorary son for a week and from saying “peace be upon you” at every greeting.

click here to view all of the photos from my trip: ISTANBUL / PAKISTAN 2025

bilal

i went to pakistan for bilal’s wedding. i met him 13+ years ago as a client. when i was apprenticing to be a barber, i worked in a black barbershop on the side of a gas station. he used to go to the owner, “L.” L was busy one day so he tried me out. i’ve been cutting his hair ever since.

we both grew up for the most part in florence, sc. him being pakistani and me being anti-everything southern seemed to make room for a good friendship between odd birds. we were both outsiders in southern american culture though we’d been surrounded by it since birth. we stayed in touch as we moved to greenville at different times and when he eventually moved to D.C.

getting to cut bilal’s hair for his wedding drew a clean full circle where the narrative of the moment made it feel like our journey was always leading us here. it was inevitable somehow. how could i have known the butterfly effect of L being too busy to see him that day could lead to me spending a week in pakistan?

wedding

i couldn’t believe i was invited and couldn’t say yes fast enough. when else in my life will i get to go to south asia and be with a local?

aside from cricket, weddings are the super bowl in pakistan.

they typically have 3 main events after the actual small muslim wedding ceremony costing 10s of thousands of US dollars each. i’m genuinely unsure how most families afford it. they’re extravagant. luxurious. the venues look like palaces you’d expect to see in las vegas or cancún.

you invite 150 people and 250 show up so you have to plan to feed 300.

the height of wedding season is november because it’s finally below 100ºF making it bearable for extended family to visit.

i have a lot of critiques of american wedding culture but this was an entirely different beast. i was in shock at the grandeur of it all.

one of the traditions i’d never seen before occurs at the end of the bride’s main event where her family sells the groom a glass of milk or coffee. my friend’s family paid $2000 for it after 30 minutes of haggling and yelling. it was a good deal, i was told.

something about weddings makes me feel hollow, sick to my stomach. maybe it’s the blind following of tradition for tradition’s sake or the amount of money and stress for everyone involved for a night that is only such a big deal because we all agreed it is? theres an element of inauthenticity that irks me. would it have occurred to any of us to do this of our own accord?

still, it was such a gift to get to be a fly on the wall and experience another culture’s most prized ceremonies.

family structure

the families i stayed with are relatively well-off for pakistan’s living standards. they live in 3 story houses where mom and dad are on the first floor, son and his wife + kids are on the second. their maids, chef, and driver sleep on the top floor which they access via an external spiral staircase. for most of the families, the son is the sole provider. he single-handedly earns enough to sustain the entirety of their bills.

they think in households. families, not individuals.

family isn’t something these folks just tolerate on thanksgiving - they build it into their structures. downstairs has two master bedrooms for the elderly and guests. upstairs has three master bedrooms for the young breadwinners and their guests. they don’t talk about building community, they are elbow deep in it. they literally commune daily with three generations under one roof, often four, eating meals and drinking tea together.

i assume i would be quite annoyed living in this large of a group. how would i find silence, respite from the chaos of family life?

yet among them i heard 0 complaints of loneliness, anxiety, or depression. there was some annoyance about timeliness which they weren’t afraid to express to each other immediately and at full volume.

is all of my toil to make sure i have enough money to cover all of my personal bills so i can live alone and be bothered by no one? that seems to be the mission of my people as experts suggest we are suffering through an epidemic of loneliness.

wealth inequality

i have never encountered income inequality quite like this.

most of pakistan lives in abject poverty, earning an average of 30,000 rupees ($120) per month. you can have 3 full-time household staff for $250/mo. often the maids come with the bonus of their own children who share in the chores and child rearing duties. one man i spoke with has a girl on staff who was a young child when she became employed. he was concerned about it being child abuse but the girls mother begged them to take her in. she said they couldn’t afford to feed themselves and would need to give away their daughter to survive anyways.

for many pakistani people, working in a wealthy person’s home is the best life they can access.

we would drive down a road with trash everywhere and half-built buildings where a family clearly lived on a dirt floor. around the next corner was the biggest luxury shopping mall i’ve ever been in. the contrast between rich and poor was staggering.

i asked how this came about and got the same answer from everyone: corruption. those in power knew how to make sure the money stayed with them.

buildings weren’t finished, security guards and police were a show of power, infrastructure was lacking, the air was filthy, and the water would make you sick. most of the blame lied on corrupt politicians who’d rather pocket the money than improve everyone’s quality of life.

this left me thankful for the enforcement of our laws and regulations in a way i hadn’t quite considered before.

nightlife

since there is no alcohol, they drink coffee and chai all night. that’s not hyperbole - i mean on friday night, especially during wedding season, they go to coffee shops to drink coffee and eat food until the sun comes up.

caffeine, sugar, and nicotine are the drugs of choice so it’s no wonder they stay wired and social.

though it was hard to keep up without over-caffeinating, i thoroughly enjoyed spending late nights with people who were sober. it was so refreshing to have no one spitting their alcohol breath in my face as they tell me a stretched truth or a half-baked political opinion.

hospitality

the paki people are unusually generous.

some days i ate up to five meals while refusing the other 3 offers out of sheer physical incapacity to ingest more paratha and chai. i was barely allowed to spend my own money and they revel in gifting. they seem to have this part of life figured out - they know the joy of giving and practice it intentionally.

on the first day, the aunt i stayed with said while i’m there to consider myself her son. she would get me anything and everything i needed and she meant it. i felt it. i couldn’t think of anything material i wanted her to buy me to bring home and it deeply troubled her. i asked instead for her chef’s secrets - a recipe for chicken karahi - which i now proudly possess.

they are willing to go anywhere and do anything for anyone at all times of the day or night. gotta go to the airport at 3am? no problem.

i am truly grateful for the way these folks took care of me as one of their own.

celebrity

i felt like a celebrity for the week.

people wanted to take pictures with me and shake my hand. i quite liked the attention, honestly, so i welcomed it. it was thrilling to walk into a market and every head turn with quiet whispers “engrisi,” “american.” my white skin made me stick out and tattoos confounded them as they are forbidden in islam. they have a fascination with foreigners that they aren’t shy about.

on my way into the city from the airport we were stopped at a military checkpoint. the man leaned over his AK-47 to get a good look at me before asking if i was american. bilal said yes, here for his wedding. the man said in urdu, “he is our guest. you may pass.” he touched his heart and shook my hand through the window. this was my first of many interactions where locals surprised me with their warm welcome.

smog

the smog played a leading role in my time there. there was an ever-present smell of burning leaves and tires. this came down to the corruption as well since the environmental regulations were rarely enforced.

the inside of my nostrils were black even though i wore a mask anytime i was outside. this along with the water situation left me feeling claustrophobic and sad. how long could i keep breathing this air before i got sick? how long could they?

islam

i got to attend jummah, friday prayer at a mosque, which holds the same significance as a sunday morning service for christians.

men worship inside the mosque and women have a roped off area, often outside the mosque, where they can pray. we sat on marble floors as the imam (priest) sang from the quran in arabic. it was all from memory. the flowing arabic was haunting, moving, and beautiful. i found myself emotional, grateful for a once-in-a-lifetime experience and for being welcomed into the inner sanctum as an alien of their culture.

after the brief sermon we gathered as close to the mihrab in front as we could, facing mecca shoulder to shoulder for prayer. you don’t leave room between yourself and the brother to your left or right to keep evil from passing through, apparently.

the imam calls out “allahu akbar” for prayer and we knelt, pressing our foreheads to the earth. the brother to my left recited his prayers in a whisper. another prayer is called and we stand, repeating a few times.

it was a brief practice and i’m thankful i don’t know what most of the words meant so it could feel sacred and i could make up my own story about it. although i think religions are fairy tales and hold no respect for them intellectually, i have to say there was a magic in the air standing shoulder to shoulder and submitting myself to the practice, even just to pretend. it’s a magic i remember from church as a kid and i miss the feeling dearly.

these days i know it’s just a feeling of camaraderie and love that swells up during acts of group devotion - something i rarely experience unfortunately. the last time i experienced it was exactly a year ago in st. pauls cathedral in london during an advent service as the choir sang in latin.

what am i bringing back?

i hear cliche’s ring out when i speak about my trip to pakistan that are similar to a religious person’s first missions trip. you see happy people living in abject poverty for the first time and realize americans are focused on wealth generation and might just have it all wrong.

should relationships be the focus?

my own personal wellbeing? maybe art?

my meditation practice?

i don’t think i’ll ever get a one-size-fits-all answer to those question but i do know a few things for sure: i am thankful for clean air, potable water, traffic lights, and the enforcement of regulations that make our cities safe and comfortable places to live. i want to spend more time hosting and feeding people in my home. i want to give more gifts and find avenues for generosity.

if you are ever invited to a wedding in pakistan,

say yes.

click here to view all of the photos from my trip: ISTANBUL / PAKISTAN 2025