Pakistan has a brand new hero. During this year’s Olympic Games in Paris, Arshad Nadeem, a 27-year-old from Pakistan, defeated India’s defending champion, Neeraj Chopra, in the javelin throw. Not only that, Nadeem set a new Olympic record, throwing the javelin 92.97 meters (or 305 feet), becoming the first Pakistani to earn an individual gold medal.
It’s the first time the South Asian country has earned a medal since 1992, when its field hockey team notched a bronze. It’s the first gold medal since 1984—also earned by the country’s field hockey team. It was a hard-won victory for Nadeem who grew up one of eight children in a mud brick house in rural Punjab. He got his start in javelin by using “long eucalyptus branches with iron tips on their ends,” his brother told Reuters.
Upon Nadeem’s momentous return home, he was quickly fêted with garlands, thousands of fans and a parade in the streets of Karachi in his honor. He also quickly became richer: He received a $50,000 prize from the Olympic Association, $350,000 and a Honda Civic from Mariam Nawaz, the chief minister of his home province, and just over $500,000 from Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif.
Then there’s the most unconventional gift he received, per NPR: A buffalo.
Nadeem received the buffalo from his father-in-law, NPR’s Benazir Samad reported Wednesday.
“In rural communities, a buffalo is considered one of the most honorable and valuable gifts, much like camels in desert regions like Saudi Arabia,” Rashad Bukhari, a writer from Punjab, told Samad.
It’s also a lucrative moneymaker, because buffalo milk—and ghee, its byproduct—is a common delicacy in the region. Pakistan is the world’s fifth-largest milk producer and is home to over 26 million buffaloes. Among all the nation’s milk-producing animals (including sheep, cattle, and goats), buffaloes have the market cornered; they account for three-quarters of all milk production.
The father-in-law in question, Muhammad Nawaz, defended his choice, per the Times of India, explaining that the buffalo gift is very “honorable” and “valuable” in their community.
Appearing on a Pakistani television program last week with his wife, Nadeem joked that he’d wished his father-in-law had instead gifted him a few acres of land. “But then I said ‘okay, fine, he gave me a buffalo, that is also nice,” Nadeem said, per a translation by India Today.
