The Pakistan We Grew Up In

The Pakistan of our childhood seems to have gone somewhere. Perhaps it is only a feeling. Perhaps it is simply that childhood has passed, and with it the innocence through which the world was once seen. Adulthood brings careers, responsibilities, deadlines and the endless business of life. The streets that once seemed so large appear smaller now, and the distances that once seemed so long can be covered in minutes. Perhaps the country has not changed as much as it seems. Perhaps it is the people who have grown older. Yet there is a lingering sense that something else has changed as well, something beyond the passage of time. The surroundings, the communities, the rhythms of social life and even the cultural character of the country seem different from what they once were.

The Pakistan of earlier years was certainly not perfect, but it possessed a certain warmth that is difficult to describe and even more difficult to recreate. In many small towns and neighbourhoods, a locality was more than a collection of houses. It was a community. People knew one another, knew each other’s families and remained aware of what was happening in the lives of those living around them. If someone cooked something particularly good, a plate would naturally find its way to the neighbouring house. The gesture required neither an occasion nor an explanation. Children could enter a neighbour’s house without an appointment, elders knew the children of the entire street, and evenings often brought people together outside their homes. There was conversation, laughter, occasional disagreement and the harmless familiarity that comes from living closely with other human beings. Much of that intimacy seems to have receded. People may now have hundreds of contacts on their phones and thousands of followers on social media, yet remain strangers to those living only a few doors away.

The disappearance of local melas is perhaps one of the simplest ways to understand this transformation. There was a time when the arrival of a mela was an event in itself. Its announcement travelled through the town, children waited for it, families planned around it, and there was a sense of anticipation that built over days. The mela brought colour, food, music, rides, stalls and, most importantly, people together. Children were excited, elders were equally pleased, and the entire town seemed to participate in the occasion. It was not merely a form of entertainment. It was a shared social experience through which a community recognised itself. Today, many such local festivals have disappeared, while those that survive often seem smaller and less central to community life. The colours of those occasions have gradually faded from the everyday life of many towns.

The same change can be seen in the neighbourhood cricket tournaments that once animated streets, towns and villages. These were rarely organised by professional bodies or commercial sponsors. Older boys would gather, form teams, arrange a ground and somehow organise an entire tournament. Every match became an occasion. People stood along the boundaries, children ran around the ground and a victory could be celebrated with an enthusiasm that only young people can produce. Such tournaments gave young men a sense of belonging, healthy competition and a place in the social life of their communities. Today, in many places, even the grounds themselves have disappeared. When playgrounds disappear, something more than open space is lost. A place where children played, young people gathered and communities interacted disappears with them. Modern development has given us more buildings, but it has not always given us more places in which to simply be together.

Even some of the everyday routines through which communities once connected have changed. Many remember children going to the mosque around Maghrib, meeting their friends there and sitting together for Quran lessons. Such gatherings were simultaneously religious, educational and social. Today, Quranic education is increasingly provided through schools or private tutors at home. There is nothing inherently wrong with either arrangement, but something communal was lost when an activity that once brought neighbourhood children together gradually became an individualised affair. The change reflects a much broader transformation in which activities that were once shared by communities are increasingly organised around individual households.

Education offers another revealing example. There was a time when academic achievement generated a particular excitement across families and communities. Matriculation results mattered. Entrance examinations such as MCAT and ECAT were discussed with extraordinary interest. A young person’s admission to a good university was a matter of collective pride, and educational achievement was closely connected with the aspiration to build a successful life within the country. Today, the aspirations of young people are changing rapidly. For many, the dream is increasingly to study abroad, secure employment abroad, establish a business abroad or eventually settle abroad. This does not necessarily represent a decline in ambition. In many cases, it reflects a more ambitious and globally aware generation. Yet it should still prompt reflection when an increasing number of talented young people begin to imagine their futures somewhere other than the country in which they were raised.

The change can also be felt in public and political life. Those who grew up during the 2000s may remember the energy surrounding local government elections in towns and cities. Political activity reached almost every street. Candidates for councillor and union council positions were familiar faces, their posters appeared everywhere and corner meetings were common. Local representatives were visible within their communities, and political competition had a tangible presence in everyday life. Over time, local politics has become less visible in many parts of the country. Local institutions have not always enjoyed the continuity, autonomy and public prominence that they ideally require, while political activity itself has increasingly moved towards newer forms of engagement. Large gatherings, rallies, corner meetings and neighbourhood level mobilisation no longer occupy the same place in everyday public life that they once did. This is less a judgement upon any particular political party or government than an observation about the changing character of public life.

The medium of political engagement has changed as well. Politics that once arrived at the neighbourhood through a rally, a corner meeting or a local representative now often arrives through a mobile phone. Political arguments are watched rather than attended, personalities are followed rather than encountered, and public opinion is increasingly shaped through screens. The result is a paradox. Political communication has become faster and more extensive, yet political participation can sometimes feel more distant and less personal. The old political gathering created a physical community, even among people who disagreed with one another. The digital political space can connect millions, but it can also divide them into increasingly isolated camps.

There is another absence that is perhaps more difficult to describe. The elders seem to have gone somewhere. This is not merely about grandparents and older relatives, whose absence is deeply felt in almost every family. It is also about the broader presence of elders in society, people whose lives carried a certain authority, wisdom and moral weight. Earlier generations grew up surrounded by people whose experiences stretched far beyond their own. Children sat with elders, listened to their stories and learnt family histories, local histories and fragments of a Pakistan that existed before them. Many of the national figures who represented that generation are gone as well. Abdul Sattar Edhi is no longer among us. Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is no longer among us. Many other personalities who commanded respect across large sections of society have passed away. What appears increasingly difficult today is finding figures around whom society can collectively gather in respect. Public admiration has itself become more polarised, with personalities often being judged through political or ideological affiliations rather than through the totality of their contribution to the country.

None of this means that the Pakistan of the past should be romanticised. It had its own political instability, economic difficulties, social inequalities and institutional weaknesses. Many problems that are visible today existed in earlier decades as well. The difference is that childhood has a way of preserving certain memories in their most beautiful form. Yet nostalgia, when understood properly, is not necessarily an escape from reality. It can also be a form of diagnosis. What a society misses can tell it what it needs to recover.

Perhaps what needs to be recovered is not the Pakistan of the past itself, because societies cannot and should not move backwards. Technology will continue to change lives, cities will continue to expand, aspirations will continue to evolve and younger generations will continue to look beyond the horizons familiar to their parents. Progress is necessary. But progress should not require the abandonment of everything that once made communities warm and human. A modern society still needs neighbourhoods that are communities rather than merely addresses. Children still need playgrounds that are accessible without commercial arrangements. Cities still need public spaces where families can gather. Communities still need cultural festivals that give people a shared identity. Local governments still need the strength and continuity required to bring public life closer to ordinary citizens. Educational institutions need to produce not only degrees and employable graduates, but citizens who retain some attachment to the society that educated them.

Perhaps, above all, there is a need to rediscover the simple art of being together. A plate of food sent to the neighbouring house, children playing cricket in an open ground, families waiting for a local mela, young people gathering at a mosque, elders telling stories and communities taking an interest in one another may appear insignificant when compared with the great achievements of a modern state. Yet nations are not held together by institutions, buildings and economic indicators alone. They are also held together by relationships, memories, rituals, shared spaces and the quiet feeling that the people living around us are, in some meaningful sense, our people.

The Pakistan of our childhood may indeed be gone somewhere. But perhaps not everything has to remain lost. The task is not to return to the past, but to carry its best traditions into the future. A country can modernise without becoming impersonal, become prosperous without becoming isolated and embrace the world without losing its sense of home. The colours of the mela, the noise of the cricket ground, the warmth of the neighbour, the wisdom of the elder and the shared excitement of community life may belong to another time, but the values behind them do not have to. If the Pakistan of childhood has gone somewhere, perhaps the Pakistan of tomorrow can bring back some of what made it beautiful.

(The writer is an officer of the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) and a former legal practitioner with an interest in public affairs, governance and society)