Everything about Peshawar is different from the rest of Pakistan. Not least of all the media centre, or whatever little of it there is at the Arbab Niaz Stadium. As the afternoon sun started beating down on the open-air ‘‘press box’’, the journalists working on early copy felt the full glare. It didn’t help that the net connection was slow and most of us stood hands on hips, in best Saurav Ganguly fashion. Soon, though, the local officials — displaying the faned local hospitality — took pity on our delicate non-Frontier constitutions and set up a shamiana over the computers.DINNER WITH DURRANIThe more appealing version of Frontier hospitality was to follow. As we were filing our copy, one man walked around the media centre asking for names and designations. Amjad Khan Malik was a local journalist who gave out dinner invites from the office of the Chief Minister of North-West Frontier Province. Strangely, not all travelling journalists were invited and most of us who were sorely underestimated the importance of the event. After dallying at the stadium with pre-match work, this writer and a couple of fellow journos took a (very slow!) autorickshaw ride to Frontier House, the Chief Minister’s residence. We realised the faux pas when we reached: a flustered Amjad was waiting for us at the gate and led us into a grand room where everyone else was already present.LOST IN TRANSLATIONSoon after, Akram Khan Durrani arrived, a most informal, un VIP person. There was no unnecessary security guard moving all around him trying to make his interaction difficult, something for our politicians to learn. Though a member of the right-wing Muttahida Majlis-E-Amal, there was nothing but genuine graciousness and warmth in his conduct through the evening. The conversation covered many topics; cricket, of course, but even the elections back home, on which Durrani was surprisingly well-informed. His own theme was ‘‘all’s well in Peshawar’’; the Indian recce team, he said, didn’t meet him when they were here, else ‘I would have convinced them to give us a Test’.If there was one hitch, it was that much of the speaking was done in Urdu, a language Greek to this Southie. However, one sentence of his needed no translation: ‘‘Let’s go eat’’. the food crossed all language barriers and can be summed up in one word: excellent (especially the fish, a local speciality.)BLAME IT ON CNNWe left Frontier House with these words of his echoing in our ears: ‘‘My city is safe’’. back at the guest house, we realised how close we were to the action. The hunt for al-Qaeda, and Osama’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, was taking place almost next door. And with nothing else to occupy our minds, worry began to surface again. The only thing to do, we said, was to have faith in Durrani and leave the rest to the Marines.
