I recognized the cab driver. I had been in his cab before. I was sure of it. First time that has happened since I’ve been here. He picked me up outside the newspaper, so perhaps he lives nearby?

Older. Maybe 50, though a lot of these guys have had a hard life, so maybe he was in his 40s. White beard. Trimmed, not crazy-in-all-directions.

He spoke a bit more English than many, and he seemed interested in using it. Especially when he found out I was American, not English, as he had first assumed.

It was a long, slow ride. Rush-hour traffic headed downtown. Took five cycles to get through the light on 11th street.

He turned on the radio. The minor chords and cymbals of south Asian music came on. “You like it? You like English?” he said, giving me a musical option. I said, as brightly as I could, “It’s fine. Please, play what you like.”  He said, “Play what you like.” But he left on his music. It was a woman singing. She didn’t seem happy.

I asked him what sort of music it was. “Pakistan,” he said emphatically. “Pashtun.”

“You like?” Yes, I said. It’s interesting.

Around about Electra Street, he asked me where I was from. When I said “United States. California” I thought I saw a flash of anger in the eyes looking at me through the rearview mirror. Could have been my imagination. “California,” he said, chewing on the word.

I asked him where he was from. All I understood was “past Peshawar. Three hours, maybe four hours in car. By plane, 15 minutes.”

Now, generally, “past Peshawar” is not a good thing. Peshawar already is uncomfortably close to Afghanistan, and past it, you’re heading into regions where the Taliban (or at least anti-government militants) are active and the locals are very, very conservative in matters religious and social.

Eventually, I thought I head him say a word that sounded like “Swat”, and I asked him. “Yes, Swat,” he said, using an English pronounciation.

Ah, Swat. I like to think I know a little geography, but it wasn’t many years ago that I thought Swat was a madeup place. A name that sounded like something else so a baseball writer could dub Babe Ruth “The Sultan of Swat” 80-some years ago.

But no. Swat is a real place. In a region of Pakistan known as North-West Frontier Province. Once considered a tourist destination. No, really. It even had a ski resort.

It has been in the news a bit in the past year. Especially if you follow your Pakistan issues. It was a fairly prosperous region, mostly a verdant valley in the foothills up there in the north where Pakistan is a narrow country with India on the east and Afghanistan on the west. But still considered an integral part of Pakistan. Unlike some of the more tribal areas.

But then the Taliban appeared to take control of nearly all of Swat, a year or so ago. Girls schools were closed.  The Pakistan military melted away. It was one of those “something must be done” moments, because Swat was getting uncomfortably close to major cities.

Finally, the Pakistani army returned, and there was real shooting, and tens of thousands of refugees, and guided drones aimed by Americans over the border in Afghanistan (and perhaps sometimes on the Pakistan side of it) descending from the heavens with a lethal bang.

My driver’s home. He grew animated.

“Taliban!” he said. “Where is Taliban?” He made sweeping movements with his arm, as if including all of Swat in his reach. “Where is Taliban?” The implication being, I decided, that Pakistan’s army showed up, but they couldn’t find any Taliban. That they were in the wrong place. That there was no need for outsiders with guns.

“Islamabad,” he said with disgust, referring to Pakistan’s capital. “Is Islamabad. No Taliban in Swat.”

Hmm. Well, someone ran the Pakistani army out of the place. Someone was shutting down schools and enforcing a strict Sharia law.

But he would not hear of it. Not that I was arguing. Just listening. “A hard time in Swat” I said.

He may have said something about refugees.

“Wazirstan,” he said. “Waziristan, Taliban.” Yes, the Taliban is in Waziristan, he was saying, referring to a region south and west of Peshawar.

But no Taliban in Swat.

He was animated. Agitated. But not apparently angry.

I have noticed here that when talkative cabbies find out I am an American, they seem interested in making a political case to me. Like the cultivated young guy from Karachi a while ago who complained that the U.S. does not bother to learn the difference between “gentlemen and criminals” when it comes to visas.

My driver today, whose surname appeared to be Bakht, wanted me to know (and maybe relay it to the autorites) that Swat has no Taliban. It should be left alone. And he definitely used the word “drone” at least once.

And, actually, the man comes from Swat. It is not some semi-mythical place Babe Ruth ruled. To him it is home. Friends and family, presumably. People getting killed and dislocated — while he is in Abu Dhabi, safe and sound and making some money but keenly aware of what goes on back home. Past Peshawar.

At the end of the ride, he insisted I take his phone number, and told me to call if I ever needed a ride. Call 30 minutes ahead of when I need him, he said, and he will come.

Maybe he would like the business. But I also wonder if he wasn’t quite through with telling me what I needed to know about Swat, and the perfidy of Islamabad and the fear of drones and the fiction of Taliban control there.

“Where is Taliban?” Not in Swat. Got it.