Nasir Kazmi: Pak Tea House, Mall Road, and the Quiet Music of Melancholy

Late Nights on Mall Road

Intizar Hussain once recalled that the return from Pak Tea House on Mall Road often came in the last hours of the night. Across the street, a tonga stood waiting—its coachman a man whose face looked educated yet worn by circumstance. He would guide the horse gently and, on seeing Nasir Kazmi, repeat the same words he had spoken the first time they met:

"شاعر لگدے او"
آؤ آؤ بَہہ جاؤ۔۔۔مینوں وی شعراں دا بڑا شوق اے

Lahore City tour

And Nasir would begin to recite extempore, offering fresh couplets to that unlikely connoisseur of verse as the carriage moved through the sleeping city.

Silences, Smoke, and a Gentle Home

After his marriage, Nasir grew more reserved. He would sometimes say that an innocent woman had been unfairly tied to him by his family—a confession made not out of indifference but out of tender guilt, for he often acknowledged the care and love with which his wife steadied his seemingly disordered life.

At Pak Tea House, he would sit for long stretches, chain-smoking, studying the trails of smoke as if reading a private script in the air. He was often quiet, but when he spoke, it felt as though verses descended fully formed. Short meters suited him especially; in them, his lyricism found a luminous economy.

Pigeons that Marked a Home

Although frequently lost in thought, he never forgot to feed his pigeons. Passing through his lane, one could locate his house by the soft, insistent cooing that floated outward. Hakim Khaliq-ur-Rehman remembered with eerie clarity:

مگر جس دن ناصر کاظمی کی رحلت ہوئی اس روز کبوتر بالکل چپ تھے

On the day of Nasir’s passing, the birds were silent.

Selected Verses (Urdu)

مسلسل بے کلی دل کو رہی ہے
مگر جینے کی صورت تو رہی ہے

میں کیوں پھرتا ہوں تنہا مارا مارا
یہ بستی چین سے کیوں سور رہی ہے

چلے دل سے امیدوں کے مسافر
یہ نگری آج خالی ہو رہی ہے

نہ سمجھو تم اسے شور ِبہاراں
خزاں پتوں میں چھپ کے رو رہی ہے

ہمارے گھر کی دیواروں پر ناصر
اداسی بال کھولے سو رہی ہے

A Lasting Afterglow

Nasir Kazmi remains one of Urdu’s most cherished voices—a poet of inward weather and hushed streets. In Lahore, the memory of Pak Tea House at closing time, a waiting tonga, and a coachman who loved poetry continues to frame his legend. The city’s night air still seems to carry those couplets, light as smoke and just as unforgettable.