Lahore does not sleep. It merely blinks, a slow, heavy-lidded blink where the frantic energy of the day softens into the neon-hazed buzz of the night. The aroma of sizzling kebabs and frying pakoras from Food Street begins to mingle with the scent of diesel and night-blooming jasmine. And in this liminal space, between the call to Isha and the first light of Fajr, a different kind of commerce whispers through the veins of the city.
This is not a story of illicit deeds, but of a silent, parallel economy. It is the world of the muraqqa‘a, the “patched one”—a term from a bygone era for a courtesan, now stripped of its poetry and replaced with the transactional, digital shorthand of “Call Girls in Lahore.” The phrase itself is a modern cipher, plastered across hidden forums, discreetly scribbled on bathroom stalls in upscale clubs, and blinking from the second-hand smartphones of a certain clientele.
Meet Alina. Not her real name, of course. Her real name is tucked away in a small village near Sialkot, a memory of a girl with scraped knees and dreams of being a teacher. The woman in the mirror of this Gulberg apartment is a construct. Her eyeliner is a perfect, sharp wing, her shalwar kameez is from Khaadi’s latest collection, deceptively demure yet tailored to suggest the form beneath. She is an artist of illusion, and her canvas is expectation.
Her world is dictated by a curated digital presence. Her photos are all暗示 (ishara—hints), never statements. A draped dupatta, a glance over a shoulder, a well-appointed lounge in the background. She speaks a language of codes. “Incall” or “outcall.” “Donations.” “Discretion assured.” Her phone is her lifeline and her shield, operated by a “manager” who filters the time-wasters and the dangerous from the merely lonely.
Her clients are a cross-section of the city’s upper crust. The scion of a political family, all nervous energy and bravado, seeking an audience more than intimacy. The weary CEO from Dubai, isolating in a five-star suite, who just wants someone to listen to him talk about the pressure. The young, recently-married man, confused and insecure, looking for a confidence boost from a professional. She is, for her allotted hours, a therapist, an actress, a confidente, and a mirror. She reflects back exactly what they want to see.
But the city has a thousand such stories, each a different thread in the same intricate tapestry.
In a much older part of the city, near the shadow of the Badshahi Mosque, lives Faryaad. She works from a traditional haveli, its crumbling Mughal grandeur a stark contrast to Alina’s sleek apartment. Her clients are older, wealthier, and seek not modernity but a nostalgia for a perceived past. They come for the performance of the tawaif—the classical music, the poetry, the elegant dance. For them, she is not a “call girl”; she is a custodian of a fading art, and the transaction is draped in the language of patronage. The money is an “offering,” a “gift” for her artistry, though the expectation often remains the same. Her life is a permanent performance, a ghost playing a ghost.
Then there is the other side of the coin—the desperate. The women in dim-lit rooms in less reputable neighborhoods, whose advertisements feature poor lighting and cheaper rates. Theirs is a story not of curated choice but of economic survival, often controlled by threats and exploitation. The phrase “Call Girls in Lahore” blankets them all in a misleading monolith, erasing the chasm of agency and circumstance that separates the woman in Gulberg from the one in Call Girls In Lahore
As dawn breaks, painting the sky in hues of rose and gold, the digital advertisements are refreshed. New numbers are listed. Old ones disappear. The city stirs, shedding its nocturnal skin. The muezzin’s call echoes through the wide avenues and narrow alleys, a sound of profound peace that somehow contains all of humanity’s complexities within its melody.
The women, too, transform. Alina removes her makeup, becoming anonymous in the morning crowd, just another soul heading home. Faryaad closes her harmonium, the music replaced by the sounds of the city waking. Their night selves are stored away, like costumes in a trunk.
“Call Girls in Lahore” is not a sordid listing. It is a lexicon. It is a thousand unspoken negotiations, a map of hidden desires and survival strategies etched onto the body of a historic city. It is a story of performance and reality, of poverty and privilege, all existing in the same breath, in the same warm, jasmine-scented Lahore night.
