In New Delhi
GLANCING at a photograph of anxious relatives scanning the pictures of people who may have got caught in Saturday's deadly blast at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel, I stopped short, taken aback more than a little.
There was a face that resembled Jawwad's. "Oh no," I thought. "Hope that's not him."
Jawwad was an agent of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence who tailed me for most of the time I spent on my last trip to Islamabad.
This was in February, when I travelled there to cover the national elections that brought the Pakistan People's Party to power.
It wasn't a pleasant experience by any means. Who wants to be tailed by a motorbike riding agent wherever you go, particularly in a country that is getting rougher by the day!
Being followed by intelligence agents is an indignity tolerated by almost every journalist who makes a living reporting on South Asia's trouble spots.
At Colombo's Galle Face Hotel, I once returned to my room abruptly, to collect something I had forgotten. To my utter surprise two agents were sitting on my bed, looking worriedly at a large package under the bed.
I assured them the package contained nothing but fine Noritake crockery, which is made locally.
In India, likewise, I assume my mails are monitored occasionally, although I am never physically followed around. Certainly, my calls to Pakistan are definitely tapped, but then so is every call made from India to that country.
Considered one of the world's best intelligence agencies, Pakistan's ISI has its eyes and arms everywhere in the country (and in some other key parts of the world, or so is its reputation).
And while it can be very sophisticated and sleek, with visiting journalists such as I, it can often act very crudely. Many of us suspect it's plain warning to us: do not step out of line.
The fact that I am stationed in New Delhi, capital of rival neighbour India, can speak several South Asian languages, and have a reasonably wide contact base in Pakistan, probably makes my profile particularly interesting to the ISI.
I became aware of Jawwad's presence on my second day in Islamabad.
Unlike Karachi, the national capital is a planned, well-laid out settlement with wide boulevards and terrific greenery. It is surrounded by hills and perfect for walking.
That evening I was on my way to an Asian diplomat's residence for a drink when I became vaguely aware of the low horsepower motorbike sputtering a couple of hundred yards behind me. Twice I stopped to ask for directions before continuing on my trudge.
After 30 minutes I heard the bike approach me and draw alongside. My breath quickened but I continued walking. Clearly, Jawwad had tired of my slow pace. He rode the bike directly on to my path and stopped. So did I.
"You must be going to Mr M's place," he said, letting me know that he was fully onto me. "It is about two km down the road, after the second intersection. Want me to give you a ride?
I hesitated. Jawwad had to do his job and I mine. But was it all right to accept a ride from him?
I looked at him for a long moment, then swung my leg over his bike and settled into the back seat. He dropped me off a hundred yards away from the residence, and pointed to the house. I walked in. He parked, alongside a car with two men inside and another biker - my diplomat friend's minders.
Later, my friend dropped me off at the Marriott and we were amused to see the number of people now tailing us - Jawwad and the other three.
And so it went on. They studied my movements, aware that I worked at my desk through mid-morning and then went out to meet contacts and cover press conferences or other events during the rest of the day. My phone surely was being monitored on a real time basis.
Jawwad slipped only twice over ten days.
Once he went off to the nearby market to have some tea. As it happened, a Pakistani friend of mine who held a very senior position with the World Bank had sent his Mercedes to collect me at that very time. When Jawwad returned he must have panicked because the security guards must have informed him about my leaving the hotel.
At another time I actually felt guilty for him.
My friend Khaled, the Bloomberg bureau chief, had called on me at the hotel and Jawwad had probably assumed that we were settling in for a long evening. Instead, Khaled took me out to a Chinese restaurent. Hours later, when Khaled and I strolled back to my hotel late in the night he was outside by a tree, his motorbike parked.
I felt awful.
"Hello, I thought you had left," I called out to him, genuinely concerned about his long day.
"Doesn't matter," he responded confidently, "Don't I look as fresh as ever?"
Only once did we really chat. Khaled, another senior Pakistani journalist, a PPP legislator from Sindh province and an academic who teaches at the university in Islamabad got together with me at Islamabad's Afghan Hotel. The dinner went late as we feasted on kebabs and naans, finishing the meal with a Pepsi drink.
This time, Jawwad stopped me as I was entering my lodgings and clearly wanted to chat. He recognised two of the men with me, he said, but would I pray tell him who the other two were?
Maybe it was his way of checking if I would be honest with him. I didn't owe him a reply, but I paused. What if he got into trouble with his bosses if his own report to them was seen as incomplete? I shrugged, then told him their identities. They were all men in public life, anyway and well-known in their fields.
In turn, I questioned him. He gave his name as Jawwad, and his home town was Bahawalpur. And he listed out for me all the interesting personalities he had tailed in his career, including some very reputed journalists.
Jawwad said he had two children and he had been in this job for about seven years. He looked very human; a family man doing his bit to put bread on the table.
As I turned to go, I looked him in the eye and told him I wouldn't be going out again that night.
ISI agents have to spend hours outside the Marriott sometimes, when their mark is in the place. The Marriott used to be the favourite meeting place in Islamabad for foreigners, rich locals, diplomats and foreign correspondents.
Agents who follow their man to the hotel park their bikes outside and wait for him to re-emerge. Often, they stroll through the hotel lobby or coffee shop to ensure he is still there.
Once, I decided to have coffee outside the bakery there. Having finished my coffee I went to the toilet. Because I was out of sight for a quarter of an hour a mild panic must have hit Jawwad because he suddenly burst into the toilet, his face lighting up with relief to see me standing there.
For the first few days all this is fun, then it becomes an irritation and a massive intrusion. It plays on your mind and if you aren't strong, wears you down.
I worry about Jawwad not because I wish to see him again but because I wish him no harm. He probably has elderly parents back at his ancestral home in Bahawalpur and two kids and a wife waiting at his government flat in Islamabad. He looked tough to me, but when he goes home he probably is a kind husband and a doting father.
After all, we all need to put on faces to meet the faces that we meet.