Brunch as Performance Art in Pakistan

Brunch: Sunday mornings in Pakistan used to smell of frying halwa puri, the sharp steam of channay, and the heavy coolness of a clay glass containing lassi. It was an exercise of excess and communion.  You didn’t sit restrained with your plate. You screamed for an extra puri, you ripped naan apart with your fingers, and you poured extra chickpeas on your cousin’s plate when they weren’t paying attention. Nobody considered taking a picture of this mess, because a family breakfast was something to be experienced, not photographed. 

Now, in some areas, Sunday morning has been redesigned. The aroma of hot oil gives way to the hiss of coffee machines. The clay glass has been ousted by a flute of mimosa, something less like a drink than an aesthetic option. Halwa puri is still consumed naturally, but brunch has ascended to the position of “doing” Sunday in the right way. And brunch, rather than halwa puri, requires an audience. 

The mimosa is a peculiar competitor for the lassi. Lassi is dense, unyielding, and near-confrontational in its capacity for making you sleepy. A mimosa serves as a polite introduction to a drink that consists of bubbles and nothing more. You can’t nap after a mimosa; you can only take a picture. Its function isn’t refreshment, but evidence. 

And then there is the omelette, plain on the surface, yet actually a chart of income groups. For the working class, it is still fuel — fried with oil, filled into roti, washed down with chai before another day of toil. For the lower middle class, it becomes bakery bread and a bold brush of ketchup, still consumed at home, yet utilitarian. 

Things get different in the upper middle level when the omelette is given an accent. The omelette now takes on a Spanish or mushroom-and-cheese flavour, often served with brown bread in cafés with an English menu. By the time you are in the elite class, the omelette has completely forgotten its origins as an egg. It is a frittata, garnished with smoked salmon, served on sourdough bread whose tale is as long as the apron of the waiter. At this stage, the omelette is not consumed; it is performed. 

And then there are the returnees, the expatriates who shuttle between worlds. They take a picture of halwa puri one Sunday with a caption “back to roots”, and next Sunday it is avocado toast with the caption “brunch vibes”. Their omelette is a bilingual performance, a reminder that they belong nowhere and everywhere at the same time. 

In contrast, the halwa puri remains in the corner of this new era, obstinately unglamorous. It remains consumed on busy streets and is gulped down by families who cluster around oily tables. But for those who stage brunch, it does not exist. It is too oily, too boisterous, and too intractable to be coaxed into an Instagram shot. 

What is so potent about brunch is that it is actually about nothing whatsoever. It is a theatre. The café is the stage, the omelette is the prop, the mimosa is the spot, and Instagram is the audience. 

Everyone has their part to play. Everyone has the script memorized. Despite all this effort, halwa puri consistently conveys the same message: it’s Sunday and we have no work. 

The irony, naturally, is that halwa puri actually satiates your stomach, while brunch satiates only the narrative you would have others believe. The former fills your stomach; the latter fills your feed. 

So the nation remains wedded to two Sundays simultaneously. In one, children sit cross-legged on plastic stools, spooning chickpeas and ripping puris, sticky-fingered and content. In the other group’s position, glasses are placed at an angle to the light, setting out plates until the food is cold, but the photograph is impeccable. Both are starving. Both are nourished. But only one has made breakfast into a show.