Congratulations. You made it. The prodigal child has returned, luggages full of duty-free gifts and misplaced optimism. But here’s the truth: the biggest con won’t come from the British Airways ticket prices, It’ll come from someone who once kissed you goodnight.
This is your survival guide. A war map for navigating the beautiful, brutal emotional landscape of Pakistan where tradition, economics and emotional manipulation braid into a dazzling, soul-crushing spectacle.
Here are 13 ways to avoid getting completely rinsed by the people who once helped you blow out birthday candles.
DISCLAIMER: This is not journalism thus it isn’t balanced. This is an unholy mashup of Reddit meltdowns, personal experiences, family group chat PTSD and the collective trauma of every overseas Pakistani who’s ever returned to the homeland and regretted it. Some stories are exaggerated. Others aren’t exaggerated enough. If this offends you, congratulations: you’re the reason this was written.
1. Don’t announce your arrival. You’re not Beyoncé.
You land in Lahore, Pakistan like a dripping mango: sweaty, wide-eyed, laden with gifts and good intentions. You’re expecting hugs and tears. Instead, you’re now the designated meat sponsor for three upcoming weddings and a funeral. The WhatsApp statuses change before your luggage even clears customs. Everyone knows. That cousin who hasn’t spoken to you since Imran Khan was in power suddenly wants to “catch up.”
You wanted nostalgia, right?
2. You are not a walking Visa lottery. Act like it.
Your accent is cute. Your passport is cuter. Every chai invitation has a hidden bullet point: “Can you write me a character reference?” or “My son wants to settle in the UK, maybe you can advise him?”
Keep your LinkedIn and immigration status vague. Tell them you’re between jobs. Say you’re retraining as a plumber. Say you’re in debt. Say you’re a barista with testicular cancer.
3. That emotional breakdown over dinner? Yeah, that’s weaponised.
You’re at the dinner table. Your aunt begins recounting the time she carried you through a fever when you were three. There’s a crack in her voice. A tear in her eye. She’s not crying for you. She’s crying at you. Because later, she will remind you of this moment when she asks for help paying off her husband’s failed restaurant debt.
Understand: The currency here is emotion, and it’s trading at an all-time high baby.
4. Do not bring gifts. Bring boundaries.
You thought you were being sweet by bringing Ferrero Rocher and Zara perfumes. You rookie. Every gift is a declaration of guilt. Every perfume bottle a quiet confession: I owe you for leaving.
You don’t. You owe them polite conversation, a few breakfasts and maybe a box of After Eights from the airport. Anything more and you’re funding your cousin’s Pyramid scheme.
5. Visit the ancestral home once. No more.
You’ll be tempted to revisit the ancestral house in Faisal Town or Defence. The paint will be peeled, the walls thinner, the ceilings lower. But there’s something else: an unspoken sense that you abandoned it. The ghosts of elderly relatives, rusted fans and unmet expectations will haunt you.
They’ll say “This was once your playground.” They’ll mean: “This could’ve been your burden.”
6. Don’t get sucked into the “You’ve Changed” trap
“You’ve changed,” says your cousin with the hair transplant and a 24-carat gold chain that’s never left his neck since 9/11.
They’ll say “You’ve changed” like it’s a crime. Just because you refuse to overeat or hand over cash at every sob story. You’re not changed. You’re just calibrated. In their eyes, you’ve grown selfish. In reality, you’ve just grown a spine.
7. Say no to Real Estate tours. It’s a Pyramid scheme in disguise.
At some point your uncle will take you on a “quick drive” to see “a new project near Model Town.” It will involve words like “down payment,” “safe investment,” and “family future.” There will be tea in an empty office. There will be brochures. There may be a man named Ahmed who keeps calling you “brother.”
You’re not a client. You’re a lifeline.
8. Avoid the Guilt-Jitsu of the family gathering
Family dinners in Pakistan are like boardroom meetings run by emotional blackmailers. Everyone is performing. The aunt who was once cold suddenly kisses your forehead like you’re a terminal patient. The cousin who stole your Game Boy now wants to discuss “business opportunities.”
Everyone is here to extract something. Nostalgia. Status. Money. Marriages. Say your hellos, sip your lychee drink and evacuate before the matchmaking aunty arrives.
9. Avoid the Wedding Industrial Complex
You thought you were dropping by for chai. You’re now suddenly the chief guest at three weddings, each looking like a soft launch for a political campaign. You’ll be paraded, photographed, maybe even “accidentally” paired with a lonely cousin. Weddings here are not celebrations, they’re extraction drills. Your presence equals social capital and someone’s gauged your annual income by the apple logo on the back of your phone.
10. Beware the WhatsApp Surveillance State
Before you even unpack, a half-dozen family group chats have sprung to life with your arrival tagged in emojis and blurry airport selfies. You are now content. Every move, every dinner, every sigh is up for dissection by uncles in Bradford and Aunts in Islamabad. One misstep (you didn’t visit your second cousin’s third husband’s grave?) and you’re a trending topic in the Family Tribunal.
Don’t reply. Don’t engage. Mute everything and claim “no roaming.”
11. Reject the ‘Son, you’re so Lucky’ narratives
They say it with affection, “you’re so lucky you live abroad”. What they mean is “we need you to feel guilty enough to send money”. They don’t want your stories, they want your guilt. They’re not interested in NHS waiting lists or inflation or housing crisis or your five-year struggle with depression. You had the audacity to leave. Now you must pay penance in the form of iPhones and remittances.
Just change the subject and forgive them, for they do not know the perils of living in London where even air costs money. And then ask them for a loan.
12. The Eye-test for Patriotism at dinner tables
At some point – possibly over chicken karahi – someone will quiz you on Pakistan’s current Prime Minister, cricket lineup or motorway projects. This is not a discussion. This is an eye-test. You’re being scanned for loyalty despite paying for dinner and gifting a Samsung A54 to someone’s youngest. You either fail (because you don’t know) or fail harder (because you do, but offer a West-leaning take).
The trick? Nod. Smile. Pretend it’s one of those genocide discussions and say: “We should all pray.”
13. Always leave two days before you actually fly out
Lie about your return flight. Say it’s on Tuesday when it’s actually Thursday. This gives you 48 hours of silence to recover, detox and decompress. You’ll need it.
Those last two days? That’s when you’ll remember the Lahore that mattered. The rooftop chai. The lahori winter. The late-night drives to Androon Sheher. The city you loved before it weaponised your absence.
Final Thought
Pakistan will make you fall in love with your past just enough to steal from your present. The people who raise you can also drain you. Not because they’re evil, but because they’re surviving. And in Pakistan, survival comes dressed as hospitality, blood ties and guilt. It’s bad economy seeping through family ties in action.
Understand: You didn’t come back to be used. But you were always going to be. Because here you’re not just family – you’re a symbol. Of survival. Of escape. Of what could’ve been. And symbols are meant to be worshipped, envied, and eventually harvested.
So visit with love, but with armour. Drink chai on rooftops where soft folk music drifts through dusk. Drive through the Old Walled City of Lahore as the call to prayer ricochets off centuries. Watch the morning light shine across Karachi’s Hawke’s Bay. Lose yourself in the silence of Hunza Valley, or lie awake beneath the silver moon of the Cholistan desert.
Let the beauty of Pakistan burn itself directly onto your skin. Not to hurt you, but to cauterise what came before. Let it sear away nostalgia. Let it carry off the weight of inheritance, of expectation, of every unspoken debt passed down like family jewellery.
Breathe it all in.
Then quietly, unapologetically, return to the UK and pay your taxes.