It is no ordinary rickety kind of bus or lorry, as one would be called in the old days. Its corporal entity seems to have been violated beyond description. Hence an adjective as inoffensive as “rickety” would do little to put the bus off the roads of Peshawar. So does the motor vehicle examiner decree as he keeps declaring it fit for road transport year after year on the payment of the usual fitness renewal fee.

One wouldn’t presume the examiner to be under the influence of the insolent driver or his flippant conductor of the bus. The conductor keeps alighting of the bus at each blockade to enable his snivelling driver to circumvent his way through what looks like an unimaginable fracas. The twosome appears to be from the old Teddy Bazaar area of Jamrud in the Khyber Agency. Now if some folks never heard of the old Teddy Bazaar, and its occupants, they might have been callous at great loss to their assets and indeed intellect. In good old days -- when the Taliban were still in the embryonic stages, the locales of the Teddy Bazaar had their own western laws and environs.

Folly took hold of those who would venture into the area unaccompanied and unguarded. Then spawned the era of VCR and blue films. Mud shacks in the Teddy Bazaar and in the main Jamrud Bazaar turned overnight into mini theatres -- some exist to this day. Youth from Peshawar and the surrounding areas flocked in droves to the tribal realm with unmitigated zeal. The eager beavers did not cease crossing the thin line, dividing the settled areas of Peshawar from the enclave of tribalism, until ensuring the installation of the silly box in all alleys of the city. That sufficiently dented the utility of the Teddy Bazaar as a safe heaven for the obscene.

Nevertheless, tribalism never stopped thriving. Imagination and contrivance will forever remain the name of the game in the tribal domain. But kidnapping, the most profitable of all tribal ventures, needs no particular knack or aptitude. All unsuspecting folks in possession of some bucks are legitimate birds for prey in as far as the gun-totting fugitives of the Teddy Bazaar are concerned. Why then would a bus driver from a place as dreadful as the Teddy Bazaar be admiring a dutiful police officer known to be the scourge of the infamous and hardened criminals? And yet this is so. The decomposed bus has one remarkable feature. It has an amateurish graffiti scribbled on its backside: Malik Saath Zindabad (an obvious reference to the dead police officer Malik Saad). A more subtle appreciation could hardly be found in the place and times that we are confronted with.

Not too distant from the Teddy Bazaar towards southwest lies Bara, the once byname for the smuggled goods from around the world. Since the shoppers had literally abandoned Bara in favour of more easily accessible new markets, religious zealots filled in the vacuum. Thus erupted one of the most fratricidal conflicts in the land of the tribesmen when two groups of different schools of religious thought vied for space and influence. The battle cry raised through FM radio stations, found no few of those willing to shed blood for the cause celebre. One of the groups finally gave in leaving the field open to Mangal Bagh.

The name spells fear. People in this part of the world are not known by names such as Mangal Bagh. One could expect Indian films having abominable characters called so but not in the tribal region of the Frontier. That unfamiliarity with the name, however, doesn’t negate the presence of Mangal Bagh in the midst of the tribesmen of Bara. Left to his own devices, Mangal knows how to deal with his enemies among whom he counts men and women accused of adultery as well as other social evils. His claim and method to purge the area of evil has multitudes of disputers. But his followers trust him and leave no stone unturned to spread the word of their leader.

So when little Ali was kidnapped for ransom, sympathisers advised his parents to seek the help of Mangal Bagh. “But we needn’t”, his parents argued, “Mr So and So holder of the highest position is related to us and he will ensure the safe recovery of our child.” “Mangal Bagh is ruthless; he will snatch the boy out of the claws of the kidnappers more quickly than your Mr So and So,” well-wishers tried to persuade and bait the restless parents.

Is Mangal Bagh our own brand of the so-called Don Quixote? More people are turning in to hold this point of view than one would agree to. People appear to have lost faith in the system. A revolution is breathing somewhere in our neighbourhood but it is falling short of the official sense of perception.

Further south in the seemingly murky but greatly romantic hills of Darra Adamkhel, people were increasingly getting fascinated with the Taliban brand of justice. That was more so after the Taliban made short work of the most infamous car-lifters of all times known by his alias “Charg” (rooster). Darra was the de facto state of Charg where he roamed and transacted his business, at will. Charg’s discomfiture won over many youngsters to the side of the Taliban. But that was not to be for long. Too soon the Taliban’s defeatist senses of purity made them go on a killing spree of the innocent barbers, tailors and CD shop owners. Too many facile victories went to their heads and led to their undoing, at least in the perception of the men of the street.

How one good officer seized with “correction mania” could play with the psyche of the most intransigents of the human lot. Malik Saad mercilessly pursued his mission. Before he was killed in a suicide attack, the late police officer had accomplished what to many looked unachievable. But there were to be no takers for Saad’s mission, although no fewer cheering his cause. The dead officer’s legacy would be little more than wall chalking, posters and graffiti drawn on road transport. But a little said is better said.

The writing on the broken-down bus is clear and loud -- and no less tempting. People in the Frontier do not forget their heroes. People in positions and power need to take over from Mangal Bagh and the Taliban before brutal justice becomes a norm and acceptable to the toiling masses. “There are several thousand more buses in the Frontier and painters, both professional and amateurs, are waiting with their brushes to glorify more names,” so says the ill-tempered driver from the Teddy Bazaar.