My Long-Forgotten Footprints in Kabul, Circa 1978. nguptatravelscrapbook.blogspot.com 29/08/2021

Blog number 36. My long-forgotten footprints in Kabul, circa 1978

nguptatravelscrapbook.blogspot.com.  29/08/2021

"If you have a secret, take it, carry it to the Hindu Kush and lay it beneath a stone". By Siba Shakib, Author of a famous book named Samira and Samir. 

A very recent picture of Afghan women ( The Times) 

Over the years, historians, writers, authors, editors, publishers, bloggers, readers, travellers, explorers and film and documentary producers have whipped up outstanding and remarkable documentaries, films and compelling writing material in the territory commanded by the Taliban. Disastrously, that is Afghanistan! Several of these books, documentaries and commercial films have won awards that have the heart-rending endorsements of the horrors of life in Afghanistan and the plight of ordinary and meek Afghan women, men and children. 

Ms Malala Yusafzai in her home town, Pakistan AP photos 

We are all too well cognisant of the deadly and life-changing events of Ms Malala Yusafzai, the youngest Nobel Laureate, a Pakistani education activist, born into a Pashtun family in the Swat valley of Pakistan. She was left seriously injured (2012) when shot down by Tehrik-i-Taliban in vengeance for her activism of attending her school. The attempt on her life sparked an international outpouring of support for her, denouncing Taliban organization at the international level, Taliban responding with plans for further such shootouts at school-going girls in the region! Many scholars wrote that Afghanistan is an ungovernable collection of tribes that bewildered every conqueror since Alexander the Great. As a wisdom, it may well be spot-on!

In the perpetual and continuum process to my previous travel blogs, I dare to write a travel blog on the city of Kabul and around, in the light of very recent, recurrent, bloody terror battles and complex and most tortuous international political affairs.

Kabul (Sourced from Wikipedia) is located high up in a narrow valley between the Hindu Kush mountains and bounded by the Kabul River, with an elevation of 1,790 metres (5,873 ft), making it one of the highest capitals in the world. The city is over 3,500 years old, located at crossroads in Asia – roughly halfway between Istanbul and Hanoi. It is in a strategic location along the trade routes of South and Central Asia and a vital location of the ancient Silk Road.

Source Wikipedia

India is my birth country; my childhood years had some incredibly fond memories of a group of people named Kabuliwallahs. Who were these people? They were obviously, from a faraway country named Afghanistan, with its capital city of Kabul, lying to the West of India and across Pakistan. Some memories are elusive, but some are etched on the memory opus undyingly and forever beautiful. My Kabul stopover en route to London from Delhi was one such memory of the later type. It remained so because I suspect my childhood had good citations of Kabul in my everyday life. 

There were related Indian connections with Afghanistan like the famous Khyber Pass (I had read about it in geography books with its map and location glimpsed in), surplus dry fruits (almonds, walnuts, pistachio, pine nuts and dried figs and apricots) sold in Indian markets and fruit stalls, including varieties of raisins and sultanas in different shapes, sizes and colours and then the ultimate spice of Saffron. 

Dry fruit stalls in Kabul ( aljazeera.com) 

I heard from my grandparents that these dry fruits (called 'mewa' in Hindi) were high-priced and that their stocks arrived from Kabul. Afghanistan word was not that commonly used in everyday dialogues in our households compared to the word Kabul. 

Few other cities were commonly named concerning rare food commodities at that time in the early sixties. The finest, sweetest and juiciest grapes originated from Chaman province, located on the Afghani-Pakistani border. That pigeon blood red pomegranates were stocked from Kandahar, another famous province of southern Afghanistan, the second-largest city of Afghanistan after Kabul. We called them Kandahari Anars (pomegranates from Kandahar).

Fruit stalls in Kabul ( aljazeera.com)

Frankly, I occasionally saw these two varieties of fruits in fruit stalls, never tasted being out of my parents' kitchen budget. The Afghan merchants also figured into the reverse trade, such as textiles, tea, and sugar from India and South Asia. One of the famous queens named Ghandhari, in the Hindu epic of Mahabharta, was born as a princess in the province of Kandahar and had a significant role in the bitter battle of Kurukshetra.

Movie poster of the film Kabuliwallah 

Then there was the famous bittersweet Bollywood film Kabuliwallah (1957), starring legendry actor Mr Balraj Sahni, depicting a short story written by the Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore in 1892. Most of us had seen this famous film in our childhood, with black and white shots filmed in Kabul. A gentle conversation in the household would often refer to this film while chattering about the current dangerous situation in Afghanistan. A poor Afghani man leaves Kabul to travel to Calcutta to earn a living as a dry fruit vendor on the streets of Calcutta. Being overwhelmingly homesick, he indulges in a poignant and caring friendship with a little girl in Calcutta who reminded him of his daughter left behind in Kabul. "E Mere Pyare Watan", a famous patriotic song from this film, still blazes immense patriotism to us Indians. 

E Mere Pyare Watan Song

To date, many Bollywood actors and actresses hailed originally from Afghanistan. 

Many authors have touched base on the Kabuliwallah storyline depicting how religion, culture, commerce, and politics have shaped people's experiences of living and moving around South Asia, including Afghans moving out of their country and travelling to countries like India, Iran, Israel and later to Pakistan. Afghans had been coming as salesmen to India for decades before and after the 1892 story. Even today, a closely-knit community of around 7,000 Afghans lives in Kolkata though they no longer are the vendors of odds and ends. Over the century, these interpretations helped shape vibrant, friendly, and neighbourly images of Afghans. An Afghani man may be called Khan Chacha (Khan Uncle) or Badshah Khan (King Khan), purporting lingering respect and admiration for these menfolk in India.

It was a very different time, and Afghanistan was a very different country, a happy country!

In the famous book "The Kite runner," the author Khalid Husseini recollects his childhood memoirs narrating an Afghan boy who escapes to the West with his father in the wake of the Soviet invasion and ends up in the USA. Husseini explained that Kabul was an enlightened landscape, a city where custom and contemporary life came together.  

As above

He explained that there was no television, but western cowboy films were played in local cinemas, and adults discussed history and philosophy at chess. They watched their children participate in kite-fighting tournaments, an age-old tradition and where the streets breathed of hot kebabs and bread! He explained further that Afghanistan was a relatively liberal and surprisingly sophisticated society (at least in urban areas) with intellectual life and a functioning bureaucracy, and exposure to western culture. He wrote that images of Afghanistan are a far cry from modern images of a country struggling with war and vast corruption. In Afghanistan, before the Taliban, the infrastructural investment and western influence of the 1930s to early 70's created a socio-political climate much different than the one that's dominated the last several decades. They were the hopeful times in Afghanistan. But at the same time, most rural Afghanistan remained conservative in their religious practices (Islam) and treatment of women.

A brief history of Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion of the country in October 1979.

Khalid Husseini wrote further that for the world, Afghanistan is instantly synonymous with the act of Soviet invasion, Taliban, Osama Bin Laden, world terrorism, bearded tribal men, Kalashnikovs, blue Burkas, American and NATO forces in Afghanistan twenty years post 9/11 and inhumane treatment to women with no human rights ever prevailing. Still, before that, Afghanistan endured for decades in peaceful anonymity. BUT before all this, Afghanistan had a golden age. 

A street scene in Kabul, Circa 1961, AP photos

In the 1920s, the young and progressive king Amanullah Khan was determined to modernize Afghanistan and brought the social, political and economic achievements he witnessed on his European tours back to his homeland. Kabul was the first to appreciate the changes in new and modern buildings appearing next to mud houses and the appearance of new roads. Women had educational opportunities than ever before, appearing in western dresses and short skirts with optional burqas as needed. The country attracted visitors worldwide, making Kabul a famous hippie stopover spot before travelling further eastwards. The tourists returned to tell the stories of this beautiful country, showcasing remarkable hospitality, attractive, cured gardens, educated people, stunning architecture, breath-taking mountains and the right weather.

Children on the streets of Kabul, circa 1961, AP photos

King Amanullah Khan was deposed in 1929 and succeeded by the last king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, in 1933. There were a few other rulers in between these times. King Zahir Shah reigned Afghanistan for nearly forty years with remarkable developments and modernization, especially in the main cities. During these kingships for more than half a century, foreign aid from the USA poured in to develop infrastructures, including the Kandahar- Herat highways and many more highways. The USSR also supplied aid to Afghanistan, investing in the regional petrol and oil industries.

On July 17, 1973, there was a bloodless coup in Afghanistan, resulting in the deposition of ruler Zahir Shah after forty years on his throne. 

The following years in Afghanistan were anything but bloodless. An era of violence descended. Under a communist regime, Afghanistan's internal security worsened in the late seventies, with the Soviet invasion deposing the county's leader. The fundamental paradox, then, is why despite nearly a century of attempts at nation-building, the Afghan state remains a perennial contender for the top spot in the Failed States Index. Afghanistan is well-known as the "graveyard of empires," since it was there that not only British East Indian forces (staffed chiefly by Indians) but also the Soviet Army and, later, NATO forces collapsed as they sought to maintain a pliant client in Kabul.

Afghanistan is now truly, and wholly blood ruled, destroyed and burnt and looted and murdered by their people! There is a black hole of civic hopelessness in Kabul, which at some stage was known as the "Paris of Central Asia."

Afghanis, a tribal race

Even before the relatively peaceful period of the sixties and seventies, Afghanistan was marked by deep-seated divisions and disunities that have everything to do with Afghan life's tribal and feudal nature. It has always been a scattering of tribes, people identifying themselves thru their ancestors. And hence thru their blood and family trust connections. This system then contributed to a rigid social hierarchy where the tribal class is the foremost and uppermost. The tribes fought bitterly against the Soviet Invasion of 1979 for several years. The USA, unfortunately, supported them to stop or arrest the expansion of the Soviets.

In facilitation, The USA provided the armaments and support structures to Mujahideen's rebels and sent billions of dollars in financial aid to Pakistan. The conflict, referred to as the Soviet-Afghan War, lasted ten years and left two million Afghans dead. Air bombings destroyed the cities and the countrysides; the same roads Afghanis had just begun to enjoy. The Soviets were bogged down with a long war and conflict and were finally driven out by the US-backed Afghan resistance fighters. The developing country was gone, even after the withdrawal of the USSR; fighting continued along with the formation of a new group called Taliban, plunging Afghanistan deeper and further into terror and chaos. The Taliban in 1996, in Kabul, was considered people's liberators and hence were greeted and cheered by suffering Afghanis. The emergence of the Taliban from the ashes of the Soviet occupation only highlighted the continuation of the history of war and peril. 

My other memories of Afghanistan. 

The Majestic Khyber Pass. 

 

The map and pictures of Khyber Pass( Wikipedia) 

With a keen interest in Geography, I have read about the vital Khyber Pass on several occasions, referenced in many books and picturized beautifully in numerous films. 

The Khyber Pass is a mountain pass in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan. It is a part of Asian Highway1, traversing part of the Spin Ghar mountains. An integral part of the ancient Silk Road, it has long had substantial cultural, economic, and geopolitical significance for Asian-European trade. Throughout history, it has been an important trade route between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent and a vital strategic military check post for various states that came to control it. 

My footprints in Kabul.

So, what is my connection to Kabul? It lasted not more than six to seven hours, in the link of a stopover destination before flying out to London in 1978. 

Even today, I can't believe that I have had a chance to leave my footprints on Kabul's dry, brown and sandy soil. When flying out to London on July 26 1978, for the first time in my life, at the age of 23, I had an air ticket of Ariana Afghan airlines in my hands, sent by my husband over from the UK. To catch the Afghan Airlines flight to London, I first flew to Kabul via an Indian airlines flight taking approx two hours.

Kabul Airport ( Wikipedia) 

Yes, I travelled independently but felt very anxious and apprehensive. I needed to collect my baggage, change the aircraft at Kabul airport, and recheck all over for the international flight to London. The Indian Airlines flight from Delhi to Kabul was not considered an international flight. Looking from the aircraft window, it was a vibrant, blue-skied morning in Kabul, the kind that made me feel like being still at home, Delhi. 

Tilting my face almost touching the aircraft's windowpane, I tried viewing the peaks of high mountains surrounding the small terminal, the peaks of which were bare with no snow. I had heard that Kabul was very cold in the winter months, with mountain peaks covered in snow. In July, the peaks were bare. There were few women on aircraft covered in blue Chaderi. Still, many women were travelling back to Kabul wearing skirts and dresses, unlike me, who was clad in a sari at Kabul Airport! A flight by Indian Airlines was like the country on wings. 

A modern crew of Afghan Ariana Airlines at Kabul Airport ( Wikipedia) 

Stepping on board, the Indian culture came alive with flight attendants clad in vibrant and colourful saris, greeting the passengers with folded hands. One of them directed me to my window seat and helped me to fasten the seat belt. This was my first flying experience; fearful, apprehensive, anxious, and all too conscious of what was chancing in the aircraft. 

I noticed a bustle in the cabin, and to my surprise, the Bollywood God, Dharmendra, was advancing towards my seat number but then moved on to the other side of the aisle, remaining in my visual fields. At that moment, all the anxiety, apprehension and what not dissolved when I articulated hello to him, who responded to my hello with his killer smile. All the stewardesses were fluttering over him, trying to make his journey comfortable, well, actually uncomfortable! 

As I landed at Kabul airport, we boarded an airport bus (Indian Tata make) and were taken to the National Hotel downtown Kabul, somewhere. I stayed for nearly five to six hours in this hotel's lobby with fellow travellers before returning to the same airport terminal, for the onward journey by Ariana, Afghan airlines, to London. While in the hotel lobby, we were served refreshing and sweet black tea a few times along with sugared almonds, dried and peppered Kabuli chickpeas and caramels wrapped up in glazed paper. From Kabul, my onward journey to London was uneventful, landing at Heathrow airport in London almost sixteen hours later with more stopovers (but not changing aircraft) in Frankfurt and Amsterdam!

Indian Afghan trade links and aid projects in the last twenty years.

Over the past 20 years, India has completed 400 projects across Afghanistan, while 150 are ongoing.

Some of these completed projects undertaken by India include the New Afghan parliament building in Kabul, Salma Dam (also called the India- Afghanistan Friendship Dam in Northwest Afghanistan), Shatoot Dam and completing a road network called Zaranj-Delaram Highway linking the southwestern corner of Afghanistan with a ring road up to the Iranian border.

These projects have made India the fifth most considerable aid/help to Afghanistan, following the US, UK, Japan and Germany. 

Currently, India imports around 85% of its dry fruits and most piquant spices from war-torn Afghanistan. As several thousands of Afghanis now flee Afghanistan following the Taliban occupation on August 15 2021, the future of the India- Afghanistan fruit trade, which is worth more than a few billion dollars, hangs in the balance for the time being. This is not so concerned off at these times.  Pakistan plays a crucial role in the trade between India and Afghanistan. Export items from India to Afghanistan are shipped via Karachi port in Pakistan. The consignments are offloaded before they are again loaded in trucks to be delivered at the Af-Pak border points of Torkham and Chaman. 

Religious tolerance in Afghanistan in the past.

The twin Buddhas in Bamiyan were destroyed completely in the year 2000. Pictures from as above in photos.

Afghanistan had a robust tolerance to religion backdated since 1400 CE. Religious tolerance was partly due to its geography, at the intersection of the ancient world's great civilization crisscrossed by the Silk Road linking China to Rome. Wool, gold, silk and spices were dispatched over the roads. As a result, Buddhist and Hindu travellers settled in Afghanistan.

Karte Parwan Sikh Shrine, Kabul, was damaged badly by the Taliban attack.

There were original Sikh followers in Afghanistan with multiple Sikh shrines all over the country. All this changed forever in Afghanistan by the Taliban. In 2000, the Taliban ordered the destruction of two 160-foot-high Buddhist statues in Bamiyan along with complete and total destruction of any remaining Buddhist statue anywhere in the country. So was the fate of Hindu, Sikhs and Jewish shrines in Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the Taliban occupation of Afghanistan since 15th August 2021.

What are the current prospects of an effective and internationally recognized regime in Afghanistan?

As I draw this blog to an end, BBC reported that with the warning shots rang out at Kabul airport, the last UK civilian evacuation flight left Kabul on August 28 2021, bringing out approx 15,000 Afghanis from Kabul. And today, the last UK troop have been flown out of Kabul safely.

A Times news correspondent in Islamabad has emphasized that the West must recognize the Taliban regime or risk making the same mistakes that led to the 9/11 attacks. The bulletin added further that if Afghanistan is left abandoned, the outcome may be the same, the security vacuum filled by undesirable elements threatening world peace once again. So far, the West has failed brutally, with humiliating scenes of Afghani evacuations spilling on our television screens since August 15 2021. The US and Allied forces evacuation turned into a bloody and murderous operation. "The West engagement with the Taliban is the only way, to ensure the Taliban remains moderate who is now in control of more than 95% of Afghanistan". Has the Taliban changed in the last twenty years as now claimed by them? The reporters insist that the signals so far are good! Watching The US President's press conference a few days ago on television was a moment to trouble anyone who believes in or relies upon American Power. Can the West avoid any further bloodshed and any further humanitarian crisis?

Biden needs a clear policy on Afghanistan, By The Atlantis. The picture was taken two days ago.

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