Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif on Friday inaugurated the historic Pak Tea House with many eminent writers, journalists and members of the civil society showing up at the anticipated event.
Among various scholars in attendance, Intezar Hussain’s presence caused a stir. He remains the oldest member of the original tea house, which had remained an attraction for the country’s intelligentsia for many decades since the partition.
The original establishment was opened in 1940 as the India Tea House by a Sikh family on the Mall, which was then at the heart of the cultural and political life of the city.
After the partition, the café changed its name.
Having been the metropolitan’s celebrated tea house, renowned in literary and political circles over many decades, it used to be the home of fiercely contested debates and discussions, as stars like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Ibn-i-Insha, Ahmad Faraz, Saadat Hassan Manto, Munir Nayazi, Nasir Qazmi and many other important figures used to visit the tea house regularly.
At the inaugural ceremony, all participants expressed joy that the establishment had been revived after 10 years. It had been converted into tyre shop upon its closure.
Intezar Hussain who had been visiting the historic tea house since its peak days recalled his memories at the historic tea house and how it used to serve as the cultural hub for the city’s literati.
“It is such a great step the government has taken in reviving a symbol of Lahore’s culture,” he added.
Professor Aziz Uddin Ahmed, a senior journalist who first visited the café in 1953, said the scene developed from a literary group, the Circle of the People of Taste, which met in a nearby YMCA building and then went to the café for tea. Before long, the group and its attendants simply started meeting in the café.
The scene, as remembered by those who visited in its heyday, was one of fierce and sometimes arrogant debate on all manner of subjects. It was also a place that attracted writers from elsewhere in South Asia and beyond.
Chinese Lunch Home, Zelin Coffee House, Shezan Restaurant, Lords and Gardenia are among the prominent restaurants on the Mall, all of which have disappeared one-by-one.
The re-launch of Pak Tea House on the Mall reflects a noble intention on the part of the government, but it is no longer a hub of the city’s cultural life which has expanded over the decades.
Although the Mall enjoys a prominent place in the metropolitan due to its historic role, the appearance of new housing societies in the periphery have given rise to multiple centres, each catering to residents from a different part of the city, if not always a different strata.
The administration of the café has been handed over to Gourmet Bakers, while it is going to be under the supervision of the City District Government of Lahore (CDGL). This arrangement was viewed by some old visitors as a breach from the old tradition when the tea house was free from restriction and was a centre of open discussions.
