While guns are everywhere, crime is relatively low. For the proud Pathans, Peshawar is the centre of the earth. Most feuds are settled in the rural areas. Peshawar is where you go to earn a name and class. And times are changing. Women were rarely seen out of a burqa a decade ago. They now walk about freely with a chador over their head and shoulders.

"Things have changed," agrees Muhammad Zaman, the turbaned guard at the Pearl Continental Hotel. "But I don't know whether this is good or bad."

The city has changed dramatically since the Afghan war began. My colleague Beniamino Natale of the Italian News Agency finds ithard to recognise the city he visited to cover the Afghan conflict when it was just starting.

Residential areas such as Hayatabad, named after PPP leader Hayat Sherpao, have sprung up rapidly. There is evidence of affluence: millions were poured in in aid at the height of the Afghan conflict. Millions were made as well.

Afghan immigrants

The ethnic mix has been transformed. There are adjoining districts where Afghans outnumber local residents. Peshawar remains in local hands but the Afghan population is sizeable: Pashtoons, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras. Most Afghan parties have representation here. Ironically, many Taliban leaders send their children to school here. For the provincial administration, the Afghans are a headache. They are now an integral part of local politics: the nationalist parties that once vocally opposed their entry today woo them because they are also Pakhtoon and part of their vote bank.

Thanks to loose immigration policies, most Afghans have Pakistani national identitycards, which means not only that they can vote but that they also hold property and enjoy the same rights as Pakistanis. Efforts to induce them to go back have had a mixed response. While many have gone back, the majority are reluctant. "We have done well in Peshawar. We don't want to go back to farming," says Waris Khan, who came from the Balkh province in the Eighties and today has a general store in the Namak Mandi of Peshawar.

`Trading' post

For most Pakistanis, Peshawar is a centre for smuggled items. A visit to the Baara market on the city's outskirts confirms this. Consumer goods such as crockery, electronics, cosmetics, carpets and furnishings abound. Smuggling them overland through Afghanistan, the enterprising traders here deliver to any part of Pakistan -- for a price. For them, smuggling is not a bad vocation. They call it trading. Most people here are deeply religious but have turned to it because of the barren landscape. This "trading" has become the largest source of income after theaid money for Afghanistan dried up. Many people talk about the "good old days" but the city still rakes in money.

Pakhtoonkhwa

Peshawar is the home of the Awami National Party of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the Frontier Gandhi. He is no more but his son Wali Khan and daughter-in law Nasim Wali Khan have inherited his mantle. Alongwith poet Ajmal Khattak, they try to wrest control from the PML-N party of Nawaz Sharif, whose chief minister Mahtab Khan Abbasi removed `Abbasi' from his name when he came to power because it denoted that he was not originally from the Frontier. The ANP broke its alliance with the government on the issue of renaming the Frontier province `Pakhtoonkhwa', home of the Pakhtoons.