From ink-stained fingers to touchscreen scrolls, the way we consume ideas has changed. But in Lahore, an old café still whispers the ghosts of conversations that once shaped the future.

There was a time when Lahore breathed poetry—when words were lived, not just written; when ideas were fought for, not just exchanged. At the heart of this literary storm stood Pak Tea House, its dimly lit corners thick with cigarette smoke and the murmurs of revolution. In pre-Partition Lahore and the early years of Pakistan, it was a cornerstone of the city's intellectual and cultural landscape.
Nestled along the bustling Mall Road, it lay just beside the historic Anarkali Bazaar, where the scent of spices and the hum of traders wove together the essence of old Lahore. A stone’s throw away stood the National College of Arts, a cradle of creativity where aspiring artists and architects honed their craft. Across from it, the grand façade of the Lahore Museum loomed, its red-brick structure holding within it the echoes of centuries past.
Facing the museum stood Punjab University, an institution that had shaped generations of scholars and thinkers. Just behind it, rising above the tree-lined avenues, the stately minaret of Government College commanded the skyline. This venerable institution had nurtured some of the nation’s finest minds—Allama Iqbal, the philosopher-poet; Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the voice of revolution; Abdus Salam, the scientific genius who would bring home a Nobel Prize; and Chaudhry Zafarullah, the diplomat who helped shape Pakistan’s foreign policy.
Winding through the narrow lanes of Anarkali, past shopkeepers calling out their wares and students poring over secondhand books, one would find King Edward Medical College. Tucked away in the heart of the old city, it stood as a beacon of excellence, producing some of the finest physicians in the land. Together, these institutions formed a vibrant hub of intellect, art, and debate, with the Pak Tea House at its very soul—a gathering place where poets, revolutionaries, and thinkers sat shoulder to shoulder, shaping the ideas that would define a new nation.

If walls could talk, Pak Tea House would speak in poetry and protest, in debates that stretched from dusk till dawn, in the laughter of revolutionaries and the sighs of dreamers. More than a café, it was a sanctuary for intellectuals, where poets, novelists, journalists, and philosophers shaped Pakistan’s cultural and political discourse.

If walls could talk, Pak Tea House would speak in poetry and protest, in debates that stretched from dusk till dawn, in the laughter of revolutionaries and the sighs of dreamers. More than a café, it was a sanctuary for intellectuals, where poets, novelists, journalists, and philosophers shaped Pakistan’s cultural and political discourse.
But the echoes have faded. The age of teahouses—once synonymous with Lahore’s intellectual life—has given way to food streets and corporate cafés, where time is money and conversations must fit neatly into social media soundbites. As Intizar Hussain lamented: “Such were the devoted souls for whom ideas and ideologies meant more than worldly benefits... Now we are living in a different world. This world cannot afford to have such souls and such haunts within its fold.”

For decades, poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, writers like Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai, and intellectuals from across ideological spectrums gathered here. It was one of the few spaces where the intellectual left and right could meet in a battle of ideas, not fists.

This was a crucible of ideas—radical, beautiful, dangerous—where writers huddled at wooden tables, discussing Marxism and modernism, literature and revolution. The air, thick with cigarette smoke and ambition, carried the weight of voices that reshaped Pakistan’s intellectual landscape.
Once the beating heart of Lahore’s literary world, Pak Tea House now exists more as a relic than a revolution. The people, the urgency, and the ideas that made it possible have vanished like smoke from an extinguished cigarette. Walk past it today, and it feels like a ghost of what it once was, lost in the hurried footsteps of a city that no longer stops to listen.
Once Upon a Time in Lahore
The history of Pak Tea House is intertwined with the story of Lahore itself. Originally known as India Tea House, it was established before Partition by two Sikh brothers who also ran the India Coffee House across the road. When the brothers migrated to Delhi in the summer of 1947, the tea house was taken over by Sirajuddin, who renamed it Pak Tea House—a name that would soon become legendary.

A. Hameed writes in ‘Lahore Lahore Aye’ in Daily Times:
"I can recall every Lahore hotel and restaurant from the early days of Pakistan. Let me begin with Pak Tea House. When I first saw it, I noticed that its sign had been crudely painted over—the word ‘India’ had been replaced with ‘Pak.’ I don’t know how Pak Tea House became the hangout of Lahore’s writers. In late 1947 or perhaps mid-1948, four brothers—Alim, Siraj, Sadiq, and Hamid—who were refugees from India, had India Tea House and Cheney’s Lunch Home allotted in their names. Sadiq received Cheney’s Lunch Home, though it was Hamid who ran it, while Siraj and Alim managed what they renamed Pak Tea House."
Renamed Pak Tea House in 1948, it became a gathering place for the intellectual elite of the young nation—writers, poets, philosophers, and political thinkers who sought to define Pakistan’s identity in its infancy. Pak Tea House gave them a home.
The café quickly became the unofficial headquarters of the Progressive Writers’ Movement (PWM), a leftist literary collective that had been founded in British India in 1936. The café also hosted the Halqa-e-Arbab-e-Zauq, a literary circle where writers gathered to critique and discuss contemporary Urdu literature, fostering a culture of fearless expression.
For decades, poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, writers like Saadat Hasan Manto and Ismat Chughtai, and intellectuals from across ideological spectrums gathered here. It was one of the few spaces where the intellectual left and right could meet in a battle of ideas, not fists. But gradually, the tides changed.
By the 1990s, the spirit of Pak Tea House was waning. The intellectual groups that once debated fiercely over Marxism and modernism morphed into closed-off cliques, disconnected from the public. The final blow came when the café shut its doors in the mid-90s, symbolizing not just the end of a café but the end of an era.
There was a time when a writer could spend an entire evening at Pak Tea House with nothing but a notebook and an endless cup of chai. When a single poem, recited in the right voice, could shake the walls. When the city’s intellectuals did not need grand halls or glittering festivals—they needed only a table, a few chairs, and the burning desire to create.

It is not that today’s youth lack intellectual curiosity, but their platforms have shifted. Social media is the new Pak Tea House, with discussions happening on screens instead of in cafés. The era of face-to-face literary engagement is fading.

A young Faiz Ahmed Faiz might have sat in one of those chairs, scribbling verses that would one day become anthems. Saadat Hasan Manto, irreverent and sharp, might have argued over a story too bold for his time. Habib Jalib, fire in his voice, might have stood up to recite a poem that sent ripples through the room.
And when the night deepened, the conversations never truly ended—they spilled onto Mall Road, into the narrow alleys of Urdu Bazaar, carried forward in whispered discussions and passionate letters.
Step outside, and the Lahore of today looks very different from the one that birthed this iconic café.
The city has modernized at a staggering pace. Towering shopping malls, glass-fronted offices, and sprawling housing societies have replaced much of the old city’s charm. Where once bicycles and tongas clattered through the streets, now SUVs and motorbikes weave through traffic jams. Lahore’s famous literary scene—once centered around places like Pak Tea House—has largely moved online.
The contrast is stark: a city racing toward the future, while Pak Tea House remains an island of the past, clinging to an era when poetry and politics were inseparable.
A. Hamid reminisces in his columns that, in the years before Partition, Lahore was a city of slow afternoons and endless conversations, where poets, journalists, and intellectuals moved through its bazaars and tea houses, weaving the fabric of a cultural life that would soon be disrupted by history. The air in Shah Alami’s narrow alleys carried the scent of spices and fresh produce, the streets so confined that a tonga could become stuck between the old buildings. Outside Lohari Gate, amid the quiet hum of daily life, a young poet with blond curls once extended his hand—a fleeting moment of literary kinship in a city on the brink of irrevocable change.
To walk through Anarkali was to witness a marketplace that was both lively and deeply familiar. A Sikh-owned sweet shop served a lassi that locals swore by, its thick, creamy texture a staple of the neighborhood. Nearby, the large sign of Nizam Hotel stood as a landmark, while a modest Hindu-run eatery—more of a dhaba than a hotel—offered wooden booths where customers could dine in relative privacy. At one of these tables sat the humorist Haji Laq Laq, a man whose sharp wit and observations would soon have a different audience in a newly drawn nation.
And then there was Pak Tea House, its name hastily repainted in the uncertain days after 1947. It became, almost by accident, the refuge of a literary class that found itself searching for permanence in an unsettled world. Here, Nasir Kazmi reminisced about the neem tree in his old courtyard in Ambala, the pigeons he had set free before leaving—only to see them return to the rooftop as he turned the street corner. Across the road, at Coffee House, journalists, politicians, and lawyers debated the headlines of the day over coffee that, to some, tasted burnt but was nevertheless essential. The conversations were quick, sharp, and often cutting—the city’s future mapped out in cigarette smoke and the scribbled notes of an editor’s draft.
The intellectual scene extended beyond these tea houses. Nagina Bakery was a quiet haunt for some of the city’s finest minds, while Lorang’s on The Mall was a picture of colonial sophistication, known for serving the best tea in town. Stiffles, once a lively bar, later gave way to Casino and Lord’s, echoing the evolving character of a city shifting in identity. In Regal Chowk, Standard—owned by a Hindu businessman everyone simply called Paul—stood as a meeting point before it, too, was lost to time.

Its significance, however, is not found in the chaye, coffee, or qehwa it serves, but in the lingering sense of history. Framed portraits of poets, intellectuals, and writers gaze down from the walls, silent witnesses to an era that still flickers to life in the occasional mushaira.

Today, Lahore is no longer the city it once was. The tea houses are gone, the grand cafés replaced by offices and shopping plazas. Where Metro once hosted ballroom dances, WAPDA House now rises. The spaces where poets once debated the future over cups of mixed tea have been swallowed by new enterprises, their absence leaving a quiet void in the hearts of those who remember. The city still breathes, still pulses with life, but for those who recall its past, it is a Lahore that exists now only in memory.
A Changing City, A Dying Culture
That world is gone now.
Pak Tea House nearly vanished. By the mid-1990s, its owner, unable to sustain the business, considered selling it but was prevented by government restrictions. Parking was scarce, traffic choked the area, and eventually, the café shut its doors in 2000. With it, Lahore lost more than a tea shop—it lost the heart of its intellectual life.
This was more than the decline of a café; it was the fading of a culture. Writers who once lived by ink and inspiration turned to other pursuits. Literature, once a dynamic force, became a performance at festivals rather than a way of life. Fiction writer Intizar Hussain, reflecting in his nostalgic essay Finding Past Again writes:
"It was a different world when coffeehouses and tea houses flourished. They thrived alongside a vibrant restaurant culture that set The Mall apart from the city's other cultural hubs. Those who gathered there were never in a hurry. They could afford to sit for hours, debating ideas and ideologies over a single cup of tea."
This shift deepened an enduring divide. The elite now gather in Gulberg and Defense, sipping imported lattes and discussing fiction in English, while the working class meets in smoky dhabas over doodh patti. Between them lingers the memory of places like Pak Tea House—too historic to erase, too out of sync with the present to thrive.
Once, it nurtured bold thought, much like Paris’ Les Deux Magots or London’s Club of Honest Whigs. But while those spaces were preserved, Pak Tea House struggled to retain its relevance. As Lahore embraces literature festivals and branded intellectualism, depth is often overshadowed by presentation. Some of the richest regional literature remains overlooked, shaped more by commercial trends than organic creative exchange.
Lahore was once the Paris of the East, where literature thrived in newspapers, magazines, and bookshops. Intellectuals debated over endless cups of tea, shaping the city’s cultural landscape. Today, the bookshops on Mall Road have nearly vanished, publishing competes with digital media, and literary discussions unfold online rather than in person.
It is not that today’s youth lack intellectual curiosity, but their platforms have shifted. Social media is the new Pak Tea House, with discussions happening on screens instead of in cafés. The era of face-to-face literary engagement is fading.
A City Forgets
Lahore, once a city of literature, has distanced itself from its intellectual past. Urdu Bazaar, once a publishing hub, is now dominated by textbook shops. Literary spaces have been replaced by corporate-sponsored festivals, celebrating spectacle over substance.
Where Faiz once recited poetry, Manto wrote defiant stories, and Jalib shook halls with his verses, now stand banks, auto shops, and malls. The battle is no longer between ideologies but between heritage and commercialization.
More than the absence of Pak Tea House, it is the emptiness left behind that marks this decline. Where the scent of old books once filled Urdu Bazaar, commercial billboards now dominate. Where literary giants once gathered near Nila Gumbad, auto parts now line the streets.
A. Hameed, recalling the history of Pak Tea House, spoke of a Sikh man who had once owned the café and a nearby coffee shop, returning years later to find his old home turned into something unrecognizable:
“When he asked the stranger to come in, he told him that he had come from India and this place and the Coffee House across the road used to belong to him and his brother. The Coffee House has long been gone and in its place there now stands a bank.”
Revival or Disappearance?
In 2013, the government revived Pak Tea House, acknowledging its historical significance. Its reopening brought a brief resurgence, attracting students, journalists, and writers eager to reconnect with its past.
But something was missing. Today, the café is more a cultural landmark than a literary hub, drawing visitors who come to reminisce or capture its nostalgia in photographs.
Where poets and writers once sparred over ideas, students and casual patrons now linger over tea. The charged debates that once defined the space have softened into quiet conversation—a gathering spot rather than an incubator of creativity.
Its significance, however, is not found in the chaye, coffee, or qehwa it serves, but in the lingering sense of history. Framed portraits of poets, intellectuals, and writers gaze down from the walls, silent witnesses to an era that still flickers to life in the occasional mushaira.
The question remains: how do you preserve a cultural institution without reducing it to a relic? Should Pak Tea House become a tourist attraction, or can it reclaim its role as a space for literature and ideas?
In a world where coffeehouses are about selfies and Wi-Fi, where poetry is performed for likes rather than revolutions, can Lahore still claim its lost intellectual depth?
Perhaps the real question is not whether Pak Tea House will survive, but whether Lahore will ever deserve it again. For many, it remains less a living institution and more a symbol of a city that no longer exists.
Will Lahore Ever Listen Again?
Pak Tea House was once the beating heart of Lahore’s literary and intellectual scene, a reflection of the city itself. As Pakistan’s cultural capital, Lahore has long been a cradle of art, poetry, and philosophy. Under Mughal rule, it flourished as a center of Persian and Urdu literature, its architectural marvels—Badshahi Mosque, Lahore Fort, and Shalimar Gardens—standing as testaments to its artistic heritage.
By the 19th and early 20th centuries, Lahore had become a publishing hub, home to influential newspapers and literary journals. It was here that Allama Iqbal penned verses that envisioned Pakistan and where poets like Habib Jalib, Ahmed Faraz, and Amrita Pritam found their voices. Against this backdrop, Pak Tea House was more than just a café; it was an institution, a space where the city’s intellectual and cultural pulse could be felt.
Today, amid rapid modernization, Pak Tea House stands as a relic of another time, a testament to an era when words carried weight and ideas could shake the status quo. Its decline is not just the loss of a physical space but a fading connection to a once-thriving legacy of art and literature. Lahore’s literary life was once alive in the streets, in the unfiltered conversations that flowed from one café to another. Habib Jalib was not just recited—he was lived.
Now, we sing Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s revolutionary verses without embracing their call to action. We admire Manto’s defiance yet hesitate to wield it. We celebrate Ismat Chughtai’s feminism but soften its edges. Every era rewrites its own intellectual history, but who now carries the torches once lit by poets, thinkers, and revolutionaries
For those who still step into Pak Tea House—past its yellowed walls and black-and-white checkered floors—perhaps there is still hope. A poet’s voice may yet rise, a debate may still ignite, and history may once again be brewed over a cup of chai. The café may no longer be the epicenter of Pakistan’s literary movements, but as long as words hold power, its story is not over.
Once, in the warmth of Pak Tea House, these words were lived, defended, and fought for. But now, the city walks past, unaware. The teacups sit empty. The chairs gather dust. The voices that once filled the air have become whispers, too faint for Lahore to hear.

The writer is a member of staff.
E-mail: [email protected]