Most of us left Pakistan with a very specific picture in our heads.

The street you grew up on. The smell of rain on hot concrete. The chai at the same dhaba every morning. Neighbors who knew your name. A pace of life that was chaotic but somehow familiar and comforting.

That Pakistan felt like home. This one — the one on the news, the one relatives describe, the one you see on your visits — sometimes feels like a different country wearing the same name.

So the honest question is — are you returning to a real place, or to a memory?

And even if you made peace with the fact that Pakistan has changed — there's another fear nobody really talks about openly.

Are you afraid of integrating back?

Not the paperwork, not the logistics. The social reintegration. Walking into a room full of relatives and feeling like a guest in your own family. Your cousins have inside jokes you don't get. Your siblings have friendships, routines and a whole life you were never part of. You laugh a little too loud, dress slightly differently, have opinions that make the room go quiet.

You're family — but you're also somehow the expat cousin.

And it goes both ways. Does your family back home still treat you as one of their own — or has the distance quietly changed that too? Are you the one they're proud of, or the one who left? Sometimes both at the same time.

Some returnees say it took them a full year to stop feeling like a foreigner in their own country. Others say they never fully shook that feeling and came back abroad.

Has anyone here actually gone through this? Did you ever feel truly home again — or is home now somewhere in between?

Hey! So I'll get directly to the topic.

A few weeks ago, a guy was running on our roof trying to find a way in, our security guard noticed and when we rushed he jumped somewhere and we couldn't find him, now we don't know if he was hiding in our neighbors home or what, but obviously you can't go to sleep if some unknown person is roaming in your home at 2 AM.

We called 15, they said police is otw, but they never came, we called a few times and they kept saying the same thing, but after weeks no one even came to check.

Then once on canal road a guy angrily bumoed his car into mine, idk if he was drunk or what, but was truly driving like a maniac, so I tried 15, and they said sir jaany dyn ye msla ni hai blah blah.

Then last night our mosque speakers were on extreme level, molvis were praying and giving byaans at midnight and no one could sleep, I called my nearest police station and asked if speakers are allowed they said no the speakers are not allowed. So I complained and they said krty hain kuch, they stopped picking up my call.

Now the question is, what if someone is truly in danger and they call 15 or their local police line, will they get any help?

What can a normal person in this country do if he gets into an emergency? In all of my 3 cases It was something very normal but seeing their behavior I can confirm they won't come to help in serious situations either.

I don't usually post things like this. But I've been watching this situation for months and I can't stay quiet anymore.

A close friend of mine lost his brother, Sakhawat, not long ago. Sakhawat was one of those people you don't forget. quiet, sharp sense of humour, never a harsh word for anyone. I studied alongside him for 8 years. Not once did I hear him speak badly about a single person. He came from a family that left everything behind, moved from a remote area, and built their life with nothing but hard work and integrity. That's the kind of household this was. And sakhawat was fightinh rear type colon cancer for 4 years and documented some part of it here: https://www.instagram.com/sakhawatay/ .

His younger brother Sharafat is also so good and muture at yang age. coz i think he have seen alot stuff, coz idk how he handle all this with patiace fr. And now he is the sole responsible person in that family. He has major exams right now. That's the situation a grieving family, one son carrying everything, and he can't even fully process his loss because he's trying to hold the family together.

Here's what's happening.

A woman named Kainat Ansari that as get in tuch with him in june july after knowing about his cancer and he was in hopital uk, she was in usa, all intaction haopped on call mostly they met few times, and she has been using Sakhawat's name, his story, and content to build a public narrative on Instagram. She is actively collecting donations including USD from international followers, including people connected to Harvard using his identity and his memory as leverage.

The family has not authorized any of this. Not a single post. Not a single fundraiser. Not a single use of his name.

She has blocked the family. She has built a following around this story. And she is using the goodwill of people who genuinely loved Sakhawat or who are simply good-hearted people moved her narative and by grief to collect money.

The family does not want a public fight. They do not want legal chaos. Sharafat has exams. They are trying to survive right now, not go to war. But I could not watch this continue without at least documenting it and putting it in front of people who deserve to know.

I sat with Sharafat and convinced him to document everything. That document is here :

Full Documentation — Names, Timeline, Evidence

Her Instagram is here:

instagram.com/kainatannsari

What I'm asking from this community:

Always Good-hearted people are being used. That's what hurts most. People who follow her, who donate, who share her content they think they're honouring someone's memory. They're not. They're funding someone who blocked the actual family of the person she claims to represent.

If you've donated, please know that money did not reach Sakhawat's family.

If you follow her, please read the document before deciding whether to continue.

And if you believe, as I do, that using a dead person's identity and story without family consent to collect real money from real people is fraud please report her account on Instagram.

To report on Instagram:

1. Go to her profile → tap the three dots (⋯)
2. Select Report
3. Select "It's a scam or fraud" or "False information"

I'm not posting this for drama. I'm posting this because Sakhawat deserved better than to have his name used as a fundraising tool. His family deserves peace. And the people donating deserve the truth.

That's all.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments. I'll answer what I can. i will tell Sharafat about this post. Coz He asked me not to make things worse I'm trying to make things right at least i think i hope I'm not overreacting.

Nobody talks about this one openly. But I think it quietly lives in the back of every overseas Pakistani's mind.

You moved abroad for opportunity, for a better life, for your kids' future. And it made sense at the time. But somewhere along the way your parents got older. The video calls started showing more grey hair, slower movement, a tiredness in their eyes that wasn't there before.

And you're still here. Thousands of miles away.

For a lot of us the deal was always "I'll go back when the time is right." But the time never feels right. There's always one more year of saving, one more school year to finish, one more promotion to wait for. And meanwhile they're getting older every single day without you there.

Some of us fly back as often as we can afford to. Some send money and tell ourselves that counts. Some have moved parents over abroad which solves the distance but creates its own complicated guilt — uprooting a 70 year old from everything they know. Some have siblings back home and quietly rely on them carrying the load, which creates a whole different kind of guilt.

And some of us have already lost a parent while being abroad — and carry that weight in a way that never fully goes away.

There's no clean answer to this one. But I think pretending it doesn't hurt is worse than talking about it.

How do you handle it? Have you found anything that actually helps — or is this just the price we pay for the life we chose?

So today I took my Khi/Isloo friends to Badshahi masjid and was stunned to know that they now charge 500 per person to store the shoes. They literally have personal bodyguards outside the gates. Pure mafia stuff. It was honestly so embarrassing to see a tourist spot turn into a money making entity. I asked the guy who was running this whether the government had allowed them to charge this amount they explicitly mentioned they have been given a contract/tender to perform this shoe collecting “business”. So whoever is running this mafia is someone with a high position in the gov/bureaucracy/military. The entire city is full of fraudiyas and scammers. It wasn’t like that like a decade ago.

I feel very uncomfortable about how Pakistan's army has an Intelligence arm totally outside of any sort of accountability from our civilian govt.

No established, stable democracy has a primary intelligence service that operates completely outside civilian government control.

Why couldn't the ISI build out a team to support the Army? Huh? Is the MI there to promote the interests of the civilian govt or the army? How come we never see his head sit or take photos by Munir? Has anyone even seen a photo of the guy who heads MI? Its so secretive that no one can ever see his face?

Sometimes when i see the majority of the pakistani population whose dad despite their shortcomings and controlling tendences love them and are their or atleats provide for them or have any sort of bond it makes me feel abnormal and alien, My dad was a alcoholic and abusive man who hit my mom and he and his family also treated her like shit and when they separated they never tried to maintain contact and my dad never provided for me, well how would he the man never could keep a job.

Due to psyhologiclal reasons my mom didnt take divorce from him not a offical divorcee title and now that man whose relatives are mnas wants her property. I am scared since our property is in a small city he through his relatives might get it and it mskes me sad and mad , this man is now in his 60s still obsessed with wealth even when he lives alone and cant let us be in peace. What should i do ?

Hi, guys. (Esp the older group, late 20s, 30s)

A quick headstart about me. I am in early 20s and am having a hard time navigating around it.

As Sylvia Plath said, "I need a mother, I need father. I need some older wiser being to cry to." Don't worry, i won't cry though. I just need answers.

Specifically:

1. Does it get better? Does anything get better or is this just what being alive is?

2. Can I start all over again if that involves disappointing pretty much everyone around me and everyone I hold dear.

There's an Urdu line I keep returning to: "maine tumhain apna dost banaya hai apne zameer ki masjid ka imaam nahi" I have never lived by this. I have let everyone be the imam of my conscience. My conscience now has forty imams and none of them is happy or agree.

3. Will i have a fulfilling life? Will I find love, or will I accidentally marry someone who makes everything harder? Because that is genuinely one of my top fears. I just want a life where I am satisfied intellectually, personally, financially, relationally and i am willing to work for that. Is that so much to ask? I just think that I won't ever have anything for myself. Anything good won't come my way.

Someone please tell me you were also like this and you're fine now. Or at least functional. I'll take functional.

So this poll was specifically for two groups — those who have been abroad 10+ years, or those who have kids. The people for whom the decision is the hardest and most real.

119 of you voted. Here's what stood out to me.

40% said "no, this is home now." That's a firm, settled answer. No hesitation, no "maybe someday." For these people the chapter is closed and honestly — there's nothing wrong with that. Life moves forward.

But here's what I find genuinely interesting — the remaining 60% haven't fully closed that door.

13% are already planning with a timeline. 15% want to return but haven't figured out when. 13% are waiting for the right moment — kids' age, finances, the stars to align. And 18% said unlikely but never say never — which in Pakistani parent language probably means "ask me again in 5 years."

So if you add it all up — 41% are either returning or seriously considering it. That's not a small number. That's almost half of a group that has been abroad 10+ years or has kids — the two biggest anchors keeping people away.

The door isn't as closed as the "forever goodbye" poll suggested a few weeks ago.

Maybe the idea of homecoming is more alive than we think.

What's keeping you in your category — whatever you voted? Drop it below.

This is something I think about a lot.

Our kids are growing up abroad. Urdu is not their first language. Their friends are from everywhere. Pakistan to them is mostly Eid, one visit per year, and maybe a WhatsApp call with relatives they barely know.

So how do we keep that connection alive — genuinely alive, not just surface level?

Some families I know speak only Urdu at home. Others send their kids to Pakistan every single summer no matter what. Some tell stories, show old photos, cook Pakistani food together. Some have given up trying and quietly accepted that their kids are just — from here now.

There's no right answer. But I'm curious what this community does.

• Do your kids identify as Pakistani, or is it complicated?
• Do they want to visit or is it a chore for them?
• Has anything actually worked to make them feel connected?
• Or are you just hoping it clicks when they're older?

Would love to hear real experiences — especially from those who have kids who genuinely love Pakistan despite growing up abroad. How did that happen?