Fluent in English, the father ran his own moving company while the mother taught art.
A death threat signed by an Islamist extremist group with three bullets attached compelled the Christian family to leave it all behind 18 months ago.
Now they live in a barren room in Bangkok, where the children share a double bed and the parents sleep on the floor. They cook on a propane burner on a tiny balcony.
A picture of Jesus, the source of their solace and their troubles, hangs on the inside of the door.
This, increasingly, is the life of the asylum-seeker and refugee.
More than half the 14 million refugees and asylum-seekers under the mandate of the UN refugee agency do not live in the camps they are often associated with.
A growing number live in cities and towns around the world. Across Asia, from India to the Pacific islands, there are about half a million such “urban refugees,” according to the agency.
The Pakistani family no longer fears for their lives, but they face other fears like arrest, hunger and the possibility that they will never be able to live freely.
Unable to work legally and with no legal status in Thailand, they and others like them must remain mostly hidden while they scrape by on odd jobs and donations from churches, aid groups and individuals.
Their children, all elementary-school age, do not go to school and spend their entire day indoors.