Opinion | The “Chicken Man” Who Threatened Imran Khan in Jail — The Modern Koça Reza: The Nouveau Riche and the Rusted Mirror
By Raja Zahid Akhtar Khanzada
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They say that in the narrow streets of old Istanbul lived a humble copper merchant named Koça Reza.
He polished pots for a living, earning barely two coins by the end of the day. Then, one day, fortune stumbled upon him — the Sultan’s royal kitchen commissioned thousands of utensils. Within months, Reza, who once knocked on doors saying, “Sir, would you buy this bowl?”, was bribing palace guards for entry into the royal court.
He began to wear silk, a proud man now, avoiding the gaze of the very neighbors who once helped him survive. One day, a beggar asked him for bread. Reza scoffed, “Go away, beggar — I’m not of your kind anymore.”
The beggar smiled and replied, “Your wealth is still new, Reza. Wait a little; even fortune’s shine grows old.” Then he added softly, “When a small tree begins to cast shade, know that the sun has not yet fully risen.”
Roughly a decade later, when the Sultan discovered Reza’s corruption, his wealth was confiscated. The same man who once bribed his way through palace gates returned barefoot to the same alley — but this time, no door opened.
History wrote a single word beside his name: “The Nouveau Riche.”
That chapter of history may have closed, but its characters still walk among us. Their faces have changed, their tongues speak English, and their vanity hides beneath designer logos.
A few years ago, in California, a man who fried chicken in a fast-food kitchen found his shortcut to fortune. Within a few years, he became a millionaire — not through sweat, but through schemes. And like Koça Reza, he mistook luck for greatness.
Now, he fumes at journalists who dare to write the truth. He bullies some with lawsuits and buys others with cash. He bends before the powerful, posing as a “patriotic businessman,” and seeks to crawl into military circles under the pretense of donations and loyalty.
But how can a man despised in his own home ever claim to serve a nation?
He wishes to stand alone — for every other shadow to vanish.
Even in his own cricket team, if a player dares to get him out, he ensures that player never returns — as if no one else has the right to win, to breathe, to exist.
Just as he played shortcuts in business, he now plays them in the game of power and fame. And in a country where wealth and spectacle are mistaken for substance, men like him find a field wide open.
Once, he was counted among Imran Khan’s inner circle. His pictures, statements, and speeches — all wrapped in the same slogan: “It’s me.”
But when the winds shifted, so did his allegiance.
The man once seen beside Khan now sits at the feet of the elite, desperate to step into the mainstream.
He even bragged: “When I went to meet Imran Khan in jail, he said he didn’t want to see me.
So I told him, ‘You can’t leave until I say so.’”
That single line exposes everything — arrogance, delusion, and self-deception.
But perhaps now even the powerful see him for what he is — a restless attention-seeker who sits wherever the light shines brightest.
The corridors of power have quietly pushed him aside, leaving him at the mercy of a colonel’s favor.
Our society, for all its intellect and refinement, still shelters such hollow men — dark in face and darker in heart — who stare into rusted mirrors and mistake their decay for gold.
Their wealth carries the sweat of the poor, their success the price of another’s hunger.
They swallow workers’ overtime, forge papers, and hide within the loopholes of law — calling deceit “business” and cunning “success.”
To me, such a man may be a fraud, but never a true entrepreneur.
He believes money can buy faith, but the truth remains eternal:
“The lowly always choose lowly ways — and the commerce of deceit never endures.”
As poet Shabeena Adeeb wrote so piercingly:
“Jo khaandani raees hain, woh mizaaj rakhte hain narm apna;
Tumhaara lehja bata raha hai, tumhaari daulat nayi nayi hai.”
“Those born into nobility carry their gentleness with grace;
Your tone betrays the newness of your wealth.”
“Zara sa qudrat ne kya nawaza, ke aa ke baithe ho pehli saf mein;
Abhi se udne lage hawa mein, abhi to shohrat nayi nayi hai.”
“Fortune blessed you a little, and you rushed to the front row;
Already you float in the air — your fame is still too fresh.”
These verses could well be carved across his forehead —
for “the fragrance in these flowers is still new,” and when autumn comes, even the brightest scent fades.
They have wealth, but no dignity; fame, but no credibility.
And the few bought journalists who orbit them only serve as mirrors — polishing falsehood into light.
The phrase “Nouveau Riche” is hardly new.
It is an old idea — as ancient as Rome, where such men were called “new men,” those who rose through money but remained poor in grace.
The Ottomans called them “Yeni Zengin” — the new rich.
And it was in that very world that Koça Reza became the East’s earliest symbol of the morally bankrupt wealthy.
The term later entered French literature, and from there Urdu and Persian — but the story remained unchanged: the wealth new, the wisdom old.
And so, time itself painted this man’s portrait — the Chicken Man — who drowned in the yolk of his own hypocrisy.
He won a crown, yes — but it was a rooster’s crown.
He found fame, yes — but only in the stains of broken eggs.
Perhaps destiny chose to teach him through pictures what words could not:
that the merchants of falsehood eventually choke on their own eggs.
In the end, one can only say this:
When such dark souls try to wear the robe of light, the darkness around them only deepens.
Koça Reza, the 17th-century copper merchant who rose through deceit and fell through arrogance, is not just a name — he is a mirror.
Sultan Murad IV stripped him of everything, and the people left him with only one title: “The Nouveau Riche.”
Today’s Koça Reza may build mansions in America, may buy media, may kneel at the gates of power or chase fame across continents — but his fate is already written.
Wealth is fleeting.
Moral poverty is forever.
And when time delivers its verdict, it writes just one line:
“He, too, was a Nouveau Riche.”
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