I came of age in a world where influence hides behind humility. Decision-makers whose signatures alter the lives of millions routinely wheel luggage through airport terminals without demanding a floral reception. Strategists who craft the architecture of global order pick up their own coffee. Silicon Valley founders dress like they’ve just rolled out of bed. Supreme Court justices dine with their clerks and staff; some even pack their own lunch. Nobel laureates walk alone to teach 8am seminars.
But in Pakistan, status doesn’t just announce itself; it enters the room with a drumroll and an entourage. Here, the moment someone acquires the slightest measure of wealth or authority, their ego doesn’t simply inflate but rents a marquee, hires a DJ and prints banners.
I must confess: I did not notice it at first. But as I spent more time rediscovering my ancestral home – a country that, in my mind, was a collage of rose-tinted memories, childhood vacations, family weddings and feel-good nationalism – this son of the soil found it both familiar and foreign.
There is a clarity, profoundly revealing and almost liberating, in encountering those who are unacquainted with who you are elsewhere, to be visible yet invisible, even in being perceived as naïve and eager. When your standing is cloaked in anonymity, you are allowed to see others in their true colours – in how they choose to engage with you or not at all. Some possess authentic warmth; others are simply seeking social ladders to climb. Some, adhering to an overestimation of their own importance, barely register your presence, their indifference a silent testimony to the hierarchies they worship; others, grounded in genuine civility, are effortlessly gracious regardless of who they believe you to be, their graciousness extended without calculation.
True character is rarely on display when the stakes are high, but is often laid bare when the audience is perceived as insignificant. For a while, I watched it all with detached amusement, but as the sentimental haze of homecoming faded, a more intricate truth began to surface: what I had mistaken for isolated eccentricities was, evidently, an expression of a deeper national condition.
There’s a precise and unmistakable moment when a Pakistani acquires a new title, a little power, or perhaps an SUV, and the neck stiffens by exactly 17 degrees. The walk slows into a ceremonial glide, as if every hallway were a red carpet or a catwalk. Words are no longer chosen for meaning, but for gravitas – delivered in measured tones, punctuated by thoughtful pauses and practised nods. Responses to texts and emails are no longer spontaneous but strategically timed, each delay calibrated to imply busyness, importance, or controlled disinterest. And the eyes? They develop that far-off, contemplative look of someone pretending to ponder the nation’s future while actually wondering whether the domestic staff remembered to pack the imported Evian bottles for the motorway road trip.
One witnesses this phenomenon ubiquitously, in its myriad, delightful iterations. There’s the politician with ministerial ambitions but no portfolio to match – relegated to B-status within their own party – who takes an online course at Oxford while enrolled at the University of Leeds and proudly lists themselves as an “Oxford alumnus” on every platform short of their nikahnama. There’s the journalist who parades around like a permanent VIP guest at the Illuminati dinner table – always ‘in the know’, murmuring about secret deals and backdoor handshakes – but somehow manages to be consistently blindsided by what actually unfolds. Yet by the end of the day, they’re on air confidently explaining how they saw it coming all along.
Even religious piety, that sacred and private endeavour, has not been spared. For there is the fashion designer who, having exhausted the blinged-out bridal aesthetic, discovers Instagram mysticism – offering Sufi quotes between sponsored posts and sermonising on simplicity while peddling limited-edition lawn, occasionally with a camel in the backdrop. Somehow, each spiritual awakening is timed, conveniently, to a product launch.
Sooner or later, the pretence gets to everyone. You launch a startup with two investors and one college friend who calls you ‘bro’, and begin describing yourself as a ‘visionary disruptor’, liberally using terms like ‘ecosystem’ in casual conversation and reframing your weekend slacking as strategic rejuvenation. You marry into a military family? Time to update your ringtone to the national anthem and start referring to relatives as ‘stationed assets’.
And if you’ve failed at everything else, fear not. You can start a ‘strategic think tank’. This will require no strategy, and even less thinking. What matters is the name (preferably something with ‘policy’ or ‘institute’ in it), a meticulously curated social media presence, and a steady drip of op-eds no one asked for. Your posts are solemn, your tone academic, and your true objective is to catch the attention of those actually in power – by tagging them, quoting them, or occasionally inviting them to be ‘honoured speakers’ at events hopefully your cousins from Rawalpindi will attend.
To understand the roots of this malaise, one must descend into the dusty archives of history, identity and trauma. The Pakistani state was born cradled in turmoil, a refugee crisis, and an existential question mark hanging over its head. From this precarious genesis emerged a nation desperate for validation, both at home and abroad. Weaponising status and hierarchy as instruments of subjugation, the British carefully constructed layers of entitlement and patronage, institutionalising a culture of exclusion and ambition. Elevating some, diminishing others, they embedded vanity, envy and insecurity into the cultural DNA as a calculated strategy to control an occupied land, leaving scars that have endured long after their departure.
Cast in the shadow of this corrosive colonial legacy – where status, privilege and skin tone determined access as well as survival – evolved a society where appearances eclipse substance, optics matter more than outcomes, spectacle is mistaken for merit, and humility is seen as weakness.
With the scarcity of genuine opportunity, where excellence is no guarantee of reward and achievement is no assurance of acknowledgement, the affliction persists and continues to proliferate, untouched by remedy or reform. A society resigned to the notion that recognition can’t be earned on one’s own merits is predisposed to manufacture it. Pretence is no longer viewed as a character flaw; it has become a tactical necessity. And so, across drawing rooms, boardrooms and press conferences, the country waltzes on – confident, coiffed, and completely unaware that the emperor not only has no clothes, but has also hired a social media team to deny it.
I do not write this as an outsider mocking a culture I do not understand. I write this as a child of two worlds who rediscovered his roots and found them both glorious and maddening. Despite this pageant of pretence, Pakistan remains a country of immense heart, unbreakable humour, and ferocious hope. Buried under layers of insecurity, competition and colonial hangover is a quiet dignity, an unassuming strength, and a warmth that will take your breath away.
If our society is to heal from its colonial affliction and the pathologies of pretence it has inherited, we must rediscover the forgotten grace in modesty, the quiet strength in kindness and the understated heroism of everyday courtesy. Let us cultivate a new aspiration – not to be endlessly noticed, but to be quietly indispensable. What we need, perhaps, is a cultural re-education, a persistent reminder that humility does not diminish stature; it elevates it.
True significance lies not in being seen as important, but in doing important things quietly, without expectation of applause. Wealth and title do not give you the right to treat others as beneath you, and the genuinely illustrious make others feel more important, not less. And of course, it’s perfectly understandable to ghost people if you’re actually or emotionally unavailable but probably not to appear endlessly scheduled, forever busy.
This re-education, however, cannot be purely aspirational and it demands more than introspection. Until quiet competence is honoured as readily as loud confidence, depth of knowledge valued over breadth of acquaintance and the genuinely accomplished prevail over those who have simply mastered the art of seeming accomplished, the incentive structure will continue to manufacture the pretence we seek to cure. Only when authenticity becomes profitable – when sincerity opens more doors than strategy – will the pageantry of pretence finally end.
The writer is an entrepreneur living in the United States and the United Kingdom. He can be reached at: [email protected]
