Fridges, firearms and fake shampoo

When the news broke that a massive operation was underway in Waziristan to capture a "high-value" Al-Qaeda target, there was panic in some quarters in Peshawar. The city district of Peshawar has about 1.3 million Afghan refugees staying in and around it. Some of these areas are truly lawless, and fall loosely into the Federally Administrated Tribal Area category. This means that the police have limited or no control over them. This, more than anything else, prompted the authorities to impose a strict ban on Afghan refugees entering within ten kilometres of the Arbab Niaz Stadium.

Most Afghan refugees stay in camps comprising semi-permanent huts on the fringe of the city district. The huts are small, almost coffin-like, and are made of mud-mortar walls. These refugees are allowed to work, but work is scarce. They depend on aid from various agencies for survival, and you would be surprised by the number of hoardings advertising human-rights agencies and refugee-related services in Peshawar.

But not all Afghans in the area live in camps. If you wind your way towards the outskirts of the city, you will first come to what is openly referred to as the smugglers' market. The border with Afghanistan is like a porous membrane - it's quite difficult to cross over the honest way, but if you're willing to risk life and limb, as hundreds do each day, you can go back and forth almost with impunity. The trouble comes not from law-enforcement agencies but from the various tribal chieftains that operate in the area. Violence is a way of life in these parts.

The smugglers' market is very interesting. Being a commercial centre, there is little or no trace of violence. The first few shops are like anything you might find in a modern shopping mall: electronic gadgets, such as DVD players, television sets and computers, line the shelves. The prices, as you would expect, are ridiculously low. When you go around to the back, however, you see a completely different picture. Technicians are hard at work in musty backrooms, stripping old gadgets down to their bare bones. Refrigerators are favourites, as they're easy to refurbish, paint and sell as new. Opposite this line of booths is a shop that sells German shampoo. It's not German, it's probably not shampoo ... but it's bottled well, packaged neatly and looks amazingly like the real thing.

Everyone is welcome here, so long as they have money in their pockets. You are greeted inside the shops with kava, the milkless Afghan green tea. Inevitably, the talk turns to cricket as soon as you let it slip that you are Indian and here for the cricket. When you finish with the chitchat about who might win and who might not, you can continue your drive away from the city.

You won't get very far, because there's a big board decreeing, in no uncertain terms, "Foreigners not allowed beyond this point." Even as you wind your way to that stage, you come across the most unreal sights. When you're pleasantly surprised by the shops openly advertising the sale of liquor, which is prohibited in Pakistan, and even hashish, which is prohibited in most parts of the world, the driver of the car, a local, tells you sharply not to get any ideas about stopping. Before disappointment sets in, you see the reason as plain as day. Just beyond the liquor stores is the famed gun market. Both sides of the road are lined by shops that have ammunition hanging like vegetables in a market. Pistols of various vintages, shotguns and the bigger stuff - Kalashnikovs and their poorer Chinese cousins - are bought and sold without the bother of licenses or permits. What's more, buyers like to test their merchandise (it's not as if there's a warranty) before they buy them, so it's not unusual to hear gunfire.

The Pathans are as famous for their hospitality as their fierceness. It is suggested that it is never a good idea to turn down an invitation in these parts. Afridis are among the four main Pathan tribes. We meet several Afridis, some gunmen, some landowners, some tribal elders. One suggests that the game would be perfect if Sachin Tendulkar made a duck and Shahid Afridi a hundred. What about Pakistan winning? Of course they would, came the answer. At least they got half of what they wanted. And a cracker of a match to boot.