"One kind word can warm three winter months."
Japanese proverb
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A Reflection on Pakistani Hospitality
I was just a YouTube food blog, Mark Wiens in Islamabad six years ago, smiling, tasting, greeting, yet it stirred something more than curiosity. What moved me wasn’t merely the food though the beef keema nihari, biryani, and seekh kebabs with that mouth watering neurotic sizzled straight off the pan. What stayed with me was something quieter, deeper: the warmth of the people.
In Urdu, there’s a word that carries the fragrance of centuries: nsaaniyati. It translates as hospitality, but it is more than that. It is a sacred duty, an honour to care for the guest in your home as if it was the creator. A familiar saying passed from generation to generation. Whether rich or poor, rural, or urban, Pakistanis open their homes and hearts with an ease that humbles. A plastic stool in a roadside tea shop becomes a throne. A shared piece of roti becomes a feast. The host insists, often with persistence, “please, have more,” as though refusal were a kind of sadness. The giving comes from the heart.
One moment in the video stayed with me. Some young students, in their early twenties, invited Mark to join them, farz, the deep, inherited sense of responsibility. This was his chance to be generous. To honour. To give. It was adab, that quiet reverence for others that turns daily gestures into sacred rituals. I found myself wondering how many such young people walk among us, quietly dignified, shaped not by cynicism or performance, but by tradition, by love, and by the belief that insaaniyat, shared humanity matters more than wealth, status, or gain.
We live in a guarded age. Behind fences and passwords, behind carefully managed small talk and suspicion. In many places, hospitality has been trimmed down to politeness and filtered through the glow of a screen. But in Pakistan, at least in the scenes I saw, it remains visceral, something you can touch, taste, and carry with you. It is born of hardship, shaped by the rhythm of the azan echoing five times a day, calling people to pause, to reflect, to remember. Whatever its source, mehman nawazi is not merely cultural; it is spiritual. It is a form of love.
And it’s not just about hosting at home. It’s also about what we do when we’re out, when we’re at a café or a food stall, gathered with friends. I’ve seen it in faces and gestures before , a quiet scanning of the room, an awareness that someone nearby is sitting alone. In that moment, hospitality becomes invitation. There is something deeply human, almost sacred, in turning toward the solitary diner and saying, “Would you like to join us?” That small gesture, so ordinary, carries with it the weight of centuries. You are not alone. Come. Sit. Be.
One could do worse than to live like that , to greet the world not with fear but with chai, to honour the guest not out of obligation but from joy. Darwaza khula hai — “The door is open.” And that’s what I felt, watching from far away. Not just hunger for food, but hunger for belonging.