On Spirituality and Truth

An absolutely brilliant and thought provoking article from a dear friend of mine....



http://dwivedys.blogspot.com/2009/03/bramharshi-yogiraj-devaraha-baba-ji.html

Kabuliwallahs

Yesterday, I met an elderly gentleman… in his eighties… a doctor by profession… he came to me with a video cassette in hand… the cassette was that of Hindi movie Kabuliwala… a Bimal Ray’s classic based on a timeless story by Guru Rabindranath Thakur.

He said… that he wants to see India…before he dies… I was touched

Today I got hold of a DVD of Kabuliwala from an Indian colleague of mine and saw it for the first time in my life… I remember reading the story when I was in my teens… and remember that I was touched by it… but was seeing the movie for the first time…

It is about a Pathan ‘Kabuliwala’… played by Balraj Sahni, arguably one of the best actors that India has ever produced… who leaves his country and comes to Calcutta to earn money… leaving his small little girl behind…. In Calcutta, he meets a small little girl… and starts seeing her own daughter in her… and both become fond of each other. Fate, however, strikes… and the two are separated when Kabuliwala goes to jail… he returns after many years… this time when that little girl is about to get married.

A poignant story… indeed… it brought teardrops in my eyes…

In one of the scenes, the Kabuliwala describes his country… as a country of few rich men… who have land, money, orchards… and happiness… and also as a country of multitudes of poor people… who suffer from disease, squalor, hunger…. He then goes on to say… that even the British favor the rich people… and promote them at the expense of poor…

It struck a chord within me… was it true even today… replace British with Americans… everything falls into place… everyday, I see people all around… living at the barest minimum of life… and people who are endowed with more than nearly everything…

This snowballed into another question… was Taliban a socio-economic upheaval to begin with… a Marxist revolution with an Islamic flavour… was it a anarchist movement that went out of control… was it not meant to be the demon it went on to become…

I keep on hearing news… where some chant for the revival of Taliban… these voices are far and few… and off course I have also seen abject bitterness against them too… the truth, I believe… lies somewhere in between.

Balraj Sahni played the role of the Kabuliwala… with a finesse that was but expected from him… I have seen him in Do Bigha Zameen… one of the best Hindi movies ever made… however there was more to it than just that…

His sun baked face… lonely eyes… reminded me of another Kabuliwala… whom I had met a few days ago… his story still reverberates within me…

The other Kabuliwala was a Pathan in his late twenties… who met me… a month ago… he wanted to go to India… to search for his roots… he was poor… very poor… almost in tatters… and yet he borrowed heavily with the sole motive of visiting his country for once…

I was amazed at is zeal… at his resolve… I wanted to know his story… his pain and his anguish… his roots…

His story begins in late 70s, when his father visited India… for trade… in Calcutta… where he met a lady… and they married… the lady then came to Afghanistan… and realized that the man she loved was already married… and that she was a mere “keep”… she was betrayed…

What she suffered thereafter… is not so unique… I am told that many Indian girls came to Afghanistan after marriage only to realize they have been betrayed…

Her passport was destroyed and she started living an unknown life… of a woman without rights… without existence in public domain… with her life of anonymity interluded by domestic violence… she gave birth to two sons…

Her elder son was the other Kabuliwala… whose eyes were moist while telling her story… he told me that her mother’s ordeal came to end three months ago when she died of cancer…. He said… my father committed a sin…

He wanted to go and see the land of her mother… and meet her family… he showed me the last few letters that her mother’s sister wrote to her… some affidavits… some old photographs of a happy family…

I was touched by his story… that he would be able to go to India… and meet his mother’s family is something best left to the future….

First Impression- Part Two

Today is Navroz… the beginning of Afghan New Year… it’s the first day of their calendar…

Perhaps its an opportune moment to write the second and last part of my first impressions of this tumultuous land… that I had taken more than a month to write this piece… is a sad commentary of state of affairs in this country… elsewhere… I would have met people… visited the countryside and hinterlands… and would have written a bunch of travelogues… but not here and definitely not now…

Navroz has a special significance… it underlines the syncretism inherent to Islam… the Abbasids Caliphs of Baghdad… did not destroy the age-old Zoroastrian tradition of celebrating the first bloom of spring… but adopted it… today these very nature of Islam in under attack… suddenly some people have made Islam look like an uncompromising religion… and suddenly hordes of scholars find Islam as an unaccommodating religion since its inception… when the truth is that the hardliners in Islam have gain currency only in last 100 years… and that their ascendancy has a lot to do with the geo-politic climes since first World War.

There is a palpable fear all around… I am arrested in a high security compound… and my movements are curtailed… one of the deepest cravings of my heart is to get out safely from this place… and at the earliest… and the big question mark that faces me is whether will I be able to…

An entire generation has perished in these badlands… the other day I was talking to a young Pakhtoon… barely in his early twenties… he looked blankly towards the sky… perhaps… metaphorically… asking Allah for help… and said I haven’t seen any other way of life… I was born in the throes of war and the war continues till date….

It kills a part of me… everyday… seeing people approaching me with some or other kind of psycho-somatic disorders… head ache… gastric troubles… stomach ache… they had been taking medicines for ages and yet there has been no improvements in their conditions… medicines cannot cure the scars of death, war and hopelessness.

I met a former Mujahid… the soldier of God… he used to fight for the Northern Alliances… and he looked towards the first bloom in a rose shrub and smiled and said… Saheb Bahaar aa gayi hai, phool kitne khush hain (Sir, the spring has come and flowers are so happy)… I realized he was no different than me… he also finds solace in the chirping of birds… the murmur sound of flowing water… but that I have been a wee bit lucky and he had been very unlucky to have taken birth in a country which found itself in the vortex of Cold War…. Then one day, he came to me… and showed me his photographs of youth… he was wearing a tie and a suit… he looked a normal human being… and not some monster that we imagine from land afar… and said… sir, we have lost everything.

Did I see a teardrop in corners of his eyes… do these people ever cry… yes they do… they are human beings… they want empathy and not continuance of some selfish great war.

I don’t venture outside a lot… one day I saw the famed mosques that houses the cloak of Prophet Mohammed… non-Muslims are not allowed inside it… and the cloak is lying in a basement… the last time it was seen, it was draped on the body of Mullah Omar… who proclaimed himself as the leader of all Believers.

I also visited the Governor’s Residence… which earlier used to be the palace of Ahmed Shah Abdali… sitting in its banquet hall… I could see the beautiful carving in the ceiling… in the pillars and tried imagining its grandeur in earlier times…

While coming to Afghanistan… I met a few people, who had lived in Kandahar 30 years ago… they had a twinkle in their eyes, while talking about the place… they reminisced about the place… of how they used to picnic in the orchards of Arghandab… how they used to fish in Arghandab river… how they used to visit Spin Boldak to buy cheap electronic items… today it all appears to be a dream world… but one day insha-Allah… things would settle down…and this place too would usher into peaceful climes… and then I would return and walk around the place… and see the town… where I stayed but never lived….

Hope floats in this place… even after this turmoil… and that speaks volume about the tenacity that the people over here have… I met a boy… a school going boy and wanted to chat with him… and spoke to him in Urdu… the best imitation that I could have had… the boy smiled and said English… and then we chatted in English for almost an hour… that twelve year old kid… wanted to go to India and study medicine… he wanted to return back and help his people… there was resolve in his voice… a resolve that no Taliban can break, no war can mitigate… he doesn’t need the world to fulfill his resolve… the world needs him… may Allah make my sons like him… may Allah make every Child of the world like him…

Life goes on in these badlands… despite the lurking fear erodes a part of me everyday… I am blessed to be here… I am blessed to see facets of life… that only a chosen few can ever see… one day when I will grow up and talk to my grand children… I wouldn’t tell them stories of my escapades in Americas and Europe… I would tell them about Kandahar, about the West Bank… about how everyday I hear 5-6 loud thuds… reminding me of being in the war zone… I am thankful to God to have granted me this opportunity…and know for sure that when I will go back… I will have one valuable lesson… I would know the value of life… of my near and dear ones… of human emotions…

Over last few months… I have been rather aloof from this blog… but not from now… I need to tell the story of this place… I need to tell my own story… I owe this to the people who have shown so much of respect and hospitality for me… unlike people of other countries… who would have passed by my sight and murmured… yet another Indian seeking greener pastures in our country…

Kandahar is an experience that cannot be told… it could only be felt… and still I would try to do the impossible… remaining apolitical… remaining a human.