Long before most Lahoris had even known of a conceivable distinction between the healthy and the unhealthy in food, there was a sleepy little shop in Mini Market that was the joy of the more inspired of us. The shop’s name was Panjeeri, and, to anyone imbued with the ethic of the natural and healthful, it was a treasure-house the likes of which one can only otherwise find in children’s books – the real-life equivalent of Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.
Then, in the summer of 2011, it closed down. Reportedly, the business it generated simply wasn’t enough to match the rising fixed costs of Mini Market’s ever-more coveted spots.
Two years later, a new incarnation of the spirit in Panjeeri appeared. Its name was Khalis Food Market, and it captured the imagination of the affluent of Lahore with a swiftness and to a degree that was altogether phenomenal – in a matter of a few months you could find virtually everyone you knew who had ever expressed as much mere curiosity about healthier food alternatives all at a single event. The quality of the atmosphere, and the ‘fruitfulness’, if you will, of the socializing by-product, made Khalis an absolute goldmine for us, the formerly ‘crazed’ health-enthusiasts.  
Then, something changed. Unlike the more puritanical Panjeeri, which refused to house products with unnatural ingredients of any kind whatsoever, Khalis took the more enterprising route of accommodating ever–more sugar-laden, vegetable-oil laden and what not-laden impostors masquerading under the umbrella of ‘Khalis.’ Consequently, it did not close down, and it did not struggle with business (which actually reached new heights in last week’s event.) Only, a year later, the vast majority of the original crazies (and the many friends who had taken inspiration), are no longer found at the Market at all. They’ve disappeared. As a matter of fact, some of us - once so enamoured with Khalis as to rigorously de-prioritize various other fronts of socializing - are now preferring to stay back home, content to scan photos for the rare new vendor of interest, such that in the affirmative case we can visit them separately from the Market.
Quite simply, the Golden Age of the second incarnation of Panjeeri, too, is now past.
To understand this motif - that the genuinely ‘khalis’ venture invariably seems to be rendered unfeasible in Lahore - let me extrapolate from Robert Pirsig’s iconic novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In the novel, the protagonist explains that there are two kinds of human understandings of life. One is the classical understanding – this is characteristic of individuals who are attracted to the complexities underlying the world, as they are found in technology, people, society etc.; it is typical of individuals who find immense richness in the patterns and intricacies beneath. Think of sociologists and psychologists, economists and health scientists.
The other is the romantic understanding – characteristic of individuals who see in terms of what is immediately found at the surface; it is typical of individuals who are motivated by pleasure-seeking and are driven by spontaneity. Think of poets, artists and musicians.
In the novel, the dichotomy serves to illustrate two couples who set out on a motorcycle road-trip, where one couple, representing the romantic, ‘Zen’ side, hope for the best and choose to not learn how to repair their bike, becoming very frustrated when problems eventually occur, while the other, representing the classic side, who choose to learn to master the mechanics, and so can repair the bike when it breaks down.
Romantic: “Feelings rather than facts predominate.”
Classic: “The classic mode, by contrast, proceeds by reason and by laws...which are themselves underlying forms of thought and behavior.”
For our purposes, let the above translate into this consideration: if you were to juxtapose the above to Lahore i.e. the question of whether it is a greater cause to indulge in the experience of having a “warm crisp jalebi on a rainy afternoon” or that of practicing self-restraint, so that you can later flaunt your sensational abdomen to the delight of your faithful spouse - let’s call this ‘the art of tummy maintenance’ – which ethic would be found to be predominant in the affluent segment of Lahore?
Let’s not argue over differing personal experiences and be brave enough to cite some of our most acclaimed intellectuals.
First, the concept of the Lahore:
“To belong to Lahore is to be steeped in its romance, to inhale with each breath an intensity of feeling that demands expression.” (From Bapsi Sidhwa’s introduction to City of Sin and Splendor - Writings on Lahore)
Wait, wait. Let’s leave absolutely no room for ambiguity.
“..the word that best captures the city of Lahore: romance.” (Bina Shah, A Love Affair with Lahore)
Okay fine. So that’s our concept. But, surely, it doesn’t have to follow that the consumption of food is inextricably tied with this sense of romance?
“..a peculiarly Lahori aura of democracy..through food..famous Lahori cuisine with its splendid demolition of class barriers..think of..vats of nihari breakfast in the old city, and the glorious copper deghs filled with a most elegant halim.” (Sara Suleri, Lahore Remembered)
I guess not. Apparently, for the Lahori intellectual, food is an exercise in Faiz’s poetry. But wait. If we were to remove ourselves from the literary sphere, and examine the more contemporary younger generation, we would hopefully find greater cause for the art of tummy maintenance.. for reason, perhaps?
“Kate Moss once said, to what should be her irreversible shame, that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Which means nothing you can eat is worth being fat for. Obviously, she has never had a warm crisp jalebi on a rainy afternoon..” (The Nation’s columnist Mina Malik-Hussain, The Trials of Fatness)
Hang on. Maybe, just maybe, if we were to shed greater light on the hazards of commercially prepared food, to convince our Romantics to upend the consumption of white bread, hydrogenated vegetable oil and white sugar for the greater cause of.. insulin sensitivity, oxidative stress and systemic inflammation!
“Lahore is a love affair, it has nothing to do with reason.” (A wildly popular phrase of unknown origin once posted on Chowk.com, now found in various literature texts and often quoted by literature professors in university classrooms)
Valiant effort by Panjeeri and even the founders of the initial Khalis Food Market (they tried), but the odds were simply too great, ladies and gentlemen.
(Maybe I’ve lived here sufficiently long that I’m romanticizing my own notions now – but I’m definitely seeing parallels with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during the Nazi occupation of Poland.)
Let me conclude with a message for the Romantics: the Classical Uprising may have been suppressed, but the Resistance hasn’t died out yet. The Romantic Food Market will go on for now. The Classicalists are few and far between, but when the scores of food poets have fallen to diabetes and obesity, their arteries shaped like jalebis..that’s when we - lean in form and ox-like in the face of social deprivation - will emerge again.
In another day, in another incarnation, the spirit in Panjeeri will be back. We, the Classicalists, shall be reunited once again.

n    The author runs Scholars by Profession, a local research-initiative.
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