🫂 One Last Nihari: Saying Goodbye to Jalal Uddin and Waris Nihari House

Jalal Uddin was a good person and a friend of friends. He passed away on June 10, 2022. I became friends with Jalal at Cometo Computer College, and we not only clicked immediately, but we also became good family friends and later did some business together.

In July of 2016, I was in Lahore visiting Ammi for her chemotherapy. I called Jalal, and he came and visited me at home. He kept asking me to go out with him, and I kept deflecting because I was there for Ammi’s treatment and wasn’t interested in going out. On the night of July 15, I was in the Gulberg office when he just came there unannounced. A person from the local office came to my office and told me of a visitor named Jalal at the reception asking for me. I asked the person to let him in and guide him to my office.

When he came, and we were done with the greetings, he asked me to just wrap up my work and come along with him, and he insisted on going for Nihari. I told my younger brother Mubarik that I was going out with Jalal and that he could go home on his own (we both used to go to the same office in Pakistan). Mubarik used to work in the Pakistan office of my company, where I used to work in El Segundo, CA. I told Mubarik that Jalal would drop me off later once we were done.

Jalal took me to the original Waris Nihari location (not at their other locations). This place was within walking distance of Jalal’s ancestral home, and it invoked some good memories that we built during our college and business days. We used to play cards all night over the weekends and then go to Waris Nihari early in the morning to enjoy fresh Nihari. Not knowing this was going to be our last Nihari together, I enjoyed the moment.

I was tasting authentic Nihari after several years, and I had an excellent time and meal. Oily Nihari, with the brain and bone marrow in it (yes, these are traditional Nihari staples—please don’t judge me here, just be in the moment with me!), topped with oily tarka, was as original and as memorable as I remembered it from the very first time I had Nihari with him. We were both sweating, but we didn’t hold back and dipped our fingers in that Nihari immediately. Jalal told the table server, in his particular style, not to bring a stack of rotis, but to just bring them one at a time, hot and fresh from the tandoor (oven). I still remember the taste of that Nihari and the presence of my friend Jalal, and I always will, as long as my memory serves me.

May Allah bless Jalal in the hereafter and make it easy for him, Aameen!