The story about being stranded in Awaran

This is the third instalment of an eight-part special feature, where we look back at some of the major stories of 2013 through the eyes of those who covered them.

                      The story: From the ruins of Awaran: Of rock, gravel and Badshah Khan

The story behind the story

“But how can we leave now?” exclaimed Sameer, my fellow reporter.

At this, I chimed in, “We have to stay for at least one more day. We haven’t seen anything but the FC headquarters yet.”

Sameer, our photographer Athar and I had been in tehsil Awaran, Balochistan, for just 12 hours.

We wanted to report on villages destroyed by the 7.7 earthquake, but the manager of the NGO we travelled with insisted that we return to Karachi that very night because “some people” did not want to spend the night. After negotiating with, persuading and eventually convincing him, we agreed to a compromise: they would wait for us till 2pm the next day.

What happened next was dramatic, to say the least. We did not leave Awaran, we were left behind.

Phones don’t work once you drive 15 minutes away from tehsil Awaran. We were two hours late and could not inform the NGO manager. Once back to the National Rural Support Programme’s office, where we had stayed the previous night, our excitement from having visited nine villages turned into anxiety and anger.

“They’re gone!” I said with a gasp. There was no car. No one at the office knew anything – we had no message left for us, and no way of returning to Karachi.

After fretting for three hours, we had an arrangement. The NRSP chief let us have his car and driver if we paid for fuel, but it could only take us to Lasbela, and no further.

It was pitch dark outside. I don’t know why I was surprised when our driver went to a friend’s house to get fuel. With petrol pumps shut down after dark, you are likely to find Iranian petrol stored in somebody’s house in the neighbourhood.

It took our driver and his friend 20 minutes to fill up the car. Finally, we were off for Bela. Winding down the chiselled road, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The relief was short-lived. The car came to a halt after a few jerks. “This is like a bad movie!” I started to yell, but Sameer and Athar calmed me down. The driver, an extremely patient man, promised me that he’d get us to Bela.

He re-started the car and barely made it to a small village. We stopped at a tea shop and, before I knew it, ten Baloch and Sindhi men were holding torches and trying to fix the vehicle. Never had I ever seen such hospitality. One by one, the men came to tell me that “all [would] be well”.

We had to tell our office that we wouldn’t be able to reach Bela by 9:30pm, from where we needed to be picked up. Luckily, the tea shop owner had a PTCL line. The receptionist at our Karachi office told us that our senior editor had left for Bela, but she could not be contacted because of reception issues.

We finally made it at 12:15am. Sameer went off to smoke. I saw him lighting a cigarette, standing at the edge of the highway. Just then, his face lit up and he started waving his arms frantically. A car drove by him, stopped and then reversed.

I saw familiar faces in the car with The Express Tribune badges. The night was finally over.