TOWARDS the end of a row of clumsily assembled shops in the Landi Kotal bazaar, a derelict door marks the entrance to a tiny island. Here, dreams take shape; ideas flourish and roll off frank, quicksilver tongues. Sweetened kahwa is generously served and savoured in pretty painted cups.

It is a haven for the restless, pensive mind; an escape for a nimble pen that fears losing the battle to a mightier sword.

The dusty marketplace is frequented by Afghan travellers en route to Peshawar, or locals looking for snacks and gifts. But the crumbling entrance leading to the one-room Landi Kotal press club is only used by journalists — always male.

I make my way up the steps wondering how I will be received. What am I doing here?

Earlier, we had had the good fortune of being stranded. After an adventurous day spent driving from Peshawar to Torkham, we were ready to get home when we found the road back abruptly dug up by men from the Frontier Works Organisation.

It was a particularly dusty road in Khyber Agency, dwarfed by stony mountains. I stepped out of the car. While my companions thought of a way out, I snapped a photo of a handsome khasadar youth sprawled on a rock, posing for a selfie. Nearby, construction workers took a break to eat orange ice lollies.

Nothing to worry about, my fellow travellers — two jovial local journalists — assured me. Help was on the way.

It arrived in the form of four khasadars from the nearby Michni checkpoint where we had earlier stopped to take in the astounding bird’s eye view of Torkham. The armour of the beaten Toyota Hilux they drove was nowhere near shining, but our knights came equipped with shovels and burly resolve. They met with success. Worn out from the wait and the unforgiving sun, my companions insisted we break for a cool drink.

And so, we find ourselves climbing the steps to the wondrous world that is the tehsil headquarters’ press club.

“Landi Kotal is not a safe place as you may know,” the club’s president Ali Shinwari says with a small smile. “But journalists visit the press club regularly.”

The main ‘hall’ is a small, carpeted room which hosts a daily baithak. Bolster pillows and small cushions line the walls and a desk and chair are stuffed into one busy corner. A wall-mounted flat-screen TV relays the latest bulletin on an Urdu news channel. Sunlight streams in through two large windows, left open for ventilation in the suffocating heat.

We sink into the floor cushions and exchange pleasantries with the handful of journalists in the room. There are no women. I am introduced as a visiting journalist from Karachi. Some of us shake hands.

“How are things there?” they ask. I blush before I speak. I think of Karachi’s frustrating survival against depressing odds; of Sabeen Mahmud’s murder, the attacks on teachers and minority communities. As usual, there is no good news to share.

“Things are the same,” I say.

Shinwari laughs. It betrays his trepidation. “We know violence. It has destroyed thinking and freedom here.”

I ask if any women come to the press club.

It is difficult enough for men to report in Fata, he says. “There are hardly any female journalists here. You are the very first woman to visit our press club.”

We both smile.

Drinks are served by an office boy. The hosts insist I drink two tall glasses of pulpy fruit juice. It is ice-cold, delicious. There’s a small plate heaped with slices of marble cake and biscuits.

“There are many pressure groups that threaten us from time to time,” Shinwari says later. “Sometimes we make compromises. Sometimes we take risks. There are times when we remain silent. But I think things are getting better.”

Shinwari’s determination is rousing. The blood spatter on the proverbial wall from the killing of 14 tribal journalists and the migration of several others does not deter the 35 registered members of this club.

“How do you carry on?” I ask. “What inspires you?”

He talks of frustration at the abysmal state of the tribal belt. It is deprived and disgraced by the stigma of militancy; he hopes to tell the story of the real, everyday Fata. Of small victories and colossal symbolic leaps.

“Really, we are not bad people. But with bad policies and no rule of law, things become worse.”

His words are heartbreaking; but his burning conviction would bring a smile to the lips of the most steadfast cynic.

“We need support. We want our women to work like men.”

Days after I return to Karachi, he uploads to Facebook a photograph of my visit to his islet of hope. In it, we are holding up a gift presented to me on behalf of the Landi Kotal press club: a pink shalwar kameez suit with embroidery on the shirt front.

Among the dozens of comments under the photo — most of them in Pashto, saying ‘welcome to our land’— two particularly stayed with me. “This means here’s peace”; “Fata’s voice can reach Karachi.”

In the days that follow, my friends from Landi Kotal post pictures nearly every day. Many of them are of a football match taking place at the Government High School ground. The sidelines are demarcated by rows of spectators sitting in one large square on the loose, sandy ground — an orderly sea of grey and white shalwar kameez. There are photographs of children and old men cheering for their teams; a cheerful one of the victors.

It takes me back to their burning urgency to make Fata belong, to tell happy and sad stories that are not pegged to the ‘war on terror’.

This boys’ club in Landi Kotal is a drop in a savage ocean of tribulation. But like Shinwari said, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2015

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