A ray of Hope
If I had to recount one person’s name… just one person’s name… whose association makes me feel proud… it has to be Rangina Hamidi.
When I was coming to Kandahar… somebody told me… that you are going to a place, which is absolutely moribund… there are no horizons to grow… just a wasteland… just a human tragedy and its pathos awaiting you. He was wrong.
It is strange but true that in this “moribund” society, I met amazing people… so amazing that I felt small… amazing, like that person, who writes with his leg… after his arms were amputated due to an IED explosion. Amazing, like those many people, who brave IEDs and bullets… with so much of resilience… that you feel nauseated about your inability and impotency.
Rangina was born… perhaps in late 1970s… so her story is, more or less, the story of Afghan turmoil… her life, therefore, has been intricately linked with the ups and downs, and mostly downs, of this tumultuous land… others would have just buckled… or would have just turned away, pretending to be blind or worse, admitting to be callous… but not Afghans… they are some different breed… exemplified in Rangina.
Soon after the soviet invasion and jihad, Rangina migrated to Pakistan … she has only fleeting memories of her childhood… being a refugee was not an easy task… Afghans were mistreated, condescended and humiliated in Pakistan… but that’s the only refuge they had… as Rangina says… those who became refugees were actually lucky… those who couldn’t… had an even worse fate awaiting them.
I actually sometimes wonder… what my life would have been like… if I had been in her place… if I was born in Afghanistan in 1975… and when I wonder… then I also feel extremely grateful to God that I wasn’t… and feel responsible that I need to pay back to the world… for being fortunate enough to have not taken birth in this human wasteland.
After few years of refuge, Rangina migrated to the US. His father, an accountant by profession, re-erected his and his family’s life from nothing… in the land of opportunities. US opened gate to opportunities… Rangina studied in the US… till something poignant happened… the defeat of Taliban… and beginning of a new dawn in Afghanistan. She returned to her motherland.
The defeat of Taliban generated a new hope that… perhaps… this country, which has been dying everyday, under the scepter of a never-ending war… can be resuscitated. It brought hopes to the heart of people like Rangina… who wanted to come back and help those millions, who weren’t as lucky as her… to be refugees. Rangina came back to this wasteland… back to the most heart-wrenching wasteland of all… Kandahar… her birth-place… where life hadn’t moved, since perhaps… 15th century… where women are born to live a life of slavery…
Rangina started “Kandahar Treasure”, a small organization of self-employed women… who gathered together… away from the claustrophobia of their male-dominated homes… and expressed their small wishes and aspirations… in beautiful embroideries.
As Rangina often puts it… Kandahar Treasure was not only… a place to work… a place to earn livelihood… but also to socialize… to share their fears and joys… to share their wishes and exasperation… to lend a voice to their unheard voices… that seem to die within themselves… that seem to corrode their existence from within… in this society… where male-domination, on one hand… and the bullets, on the other… have surrogated their life to a life worse than death.
I met Rangina, almost accidentally, when she was planning to go to India… I had heard her name, almost everyday, ever since, I had stepped in this wasteland. And whenever I heard her name, I wanted to meet her… out of reverence… I have grown up seeing strong women… my mother… who sustained her family, after her father died at an early age… my wife, who single-handedly pulled her family out of the morass… I saw the same strength in Rangina… all the more… she has taken the onus of giving a helping hand to the women of this moribund society.
Rangina is helped by her very understanding and supportive husband… who defies the stereotypes of males in this part of world… together they are doing an onerous task of changing the social structures… and mind you, that and only that holds the key to change the fate of this place… as Rangina puts it, often, future of this country lies in the hands of Afghan women… and the process of transition would gradually… happen.
Kandahar Treasure sells its produces in North America… today… it’s a self sustaining organization… it is a dream come true… a hope fulfilled… it opens a window of opportunity to hundreds of women employed within, and dreaming without… that they can perhaps… mould their society for a better tomorrow… where their sons and daughters… would read and write… would live as free people… and not fall prey to misplaced values… of intolerance… of “nang and namoos” (shame and pride)… of “badal” (revenge)… an eye for an eye, makes everybody blind.
Some months ago… I met a young Afghan girl… Lina… she wanted to go and study in India… she spoke with a vivacity… and vitality, which I am yet to see in any male in this place… people like her, like Rangina… hold the key to future… Rangina is expecting to deliver a baby, soon… I pray to God… it is a girl-child… and that she helps her mother… in the onerous task, she had undertaken…
Amen!
When I was coming to Kandahar… somebody told me… that you are going to a place, which is absolutely moribund… there are no horizons to grow… just a wasteland… just a human tragedy and its pathos awaiting you. He was wrong.
It is strange but true that in this “moribund” society, I met amazing people… so amazing that I felt small… amazing, like that person, who writes with his leg… after his arms were amputated due to an IED explosion. Amazing, like those many people, who brave IEDs and bullets… with so much of resilience… that you feel nauseated about your inability and impotency.
Rangina was born… perhaps in late 1970s… so her story is, more or less, the story of Afghan turmoil… her life, therefore, has been intricately linked with the ups and downs, and mostly downs, of this tumultuous land… others would have just buckled… or would have just turned away, pretending to be blind or worse, admitting to be callous… but not Afghans… they are some different breed… exemplified in Rangina.
Soon after the soviet invasion and jihad, Rangina migrated to Pakistan … she has only fleeting memories of her childhood… being a refugee was not an easy task… Afghans were mistreated, condescended and humiliated in Pakistan… but that’s the only refuge they had… as Rangina says… those who became refugees were actually lucky… those who couldn’t… had an even worse fate awaiting them.
I actually sometimes wonder… what my life would have been like… if I had been in her place… if I was born in Afghanistan in 1975… and when I wonder… then I also feel extremely grateful to God that I wasn’t… and feel responsible that I need to pay back to the world… for being fortunate enough to have not taken birth in this human wasteland.
After few years of refuge, Rangina migrated to the US. His father, an accountant by profession, re-erected his and his family’s life from nothing… in the land of opportunities. US opened gate to opportunities… Rangina studied in the US… till something poignant happened… the defeat of Taliban… and beginning of a new dawn in Afghanistan. She returned to her motherland.
The defeat of Taliban generated a new hope that… perhaps… this country, which has been dying everyday, under the scepter of a never-ending war… can be resuscitated. It brought hopes to the heart of people like Rangina… who wanted to come back and help those millions, who weren’t as lucky as her… to be refugees. Rangina came back to this wasteland… back to the most heart-wrenching wasteland of all… Kandahar… her birth-place… where life hadn’t moved, since perhaps… 15th century… where women are born to live a life of slavery…
Rangina started “Kandahar Treasure”, a small organization of self-employed women… who gathered together… away from the claustrophobia of their male-dominated homes… and expressed their small wishes and aspirations… in beautiful embroideries.
As Rangina often puts it… Kandahar Treasure was not only… a place to work… a place to earn livelihood… but also to socialize… to share their fears and joys… to share their wishes and exasperation… to lend a voice to their unheard voices… that seem to die within themselves… that seem to corrode their existence from within… in this society… where male-domination, on one hand… and the bullets, on the other… have surrogated their life to a life worse than death.
I met Rangina, almost accidentally, when she was planning to go to India… I had heard her name, almost everyday, ever since, I had stepped in this wasteland. And whenever I heard her name, I wanted to meet her… out of reverence… I have grown up seeing strong women… my mother… who sustained her family, after her father died at an early age… my wife, who single-handedly pulled her family out of the morass… I saw the same strength in Rangina… all the more… she has taken the onus of giving a helping hand to the women of this moribund society.
Rangina is helped by her very understanding and supportive husband… who defies the stereotypes of males in this part of world… together they are doing an onerous task of changing the social structures… and mind you, that and only that holds the key to change the fate of this place… as Rangina puts it, often, future of this country lies in the hands of Afghan women… and the process of transition would gradually… happen.
Kandahar Treasure sells its produces in North America… today… it’s a self sustaining organization… it is a dream come true… a hope fulfilled… it opens a window of opportunity to hundreds of women employed within, and dreaming without… that they can perhaps… mould their society for a better tomorrow… where their sons and daughters… would read and write… would live as free people… and not fall prey to misplaced values… of intolerance… of “nang and namoos” (shame and pride)… of “badal” (revenge)… an eye for an eye, makes everybody blind.
Some months ago… I met a young Afghan girl… Lina… she wanted to go and study in India… she spoke with a vivacity… and vitality, which I am yet to see in any male in this place… people like her, like Rangina… hold the key to future… Rangina is expecting to deliver a baby, soon… I pray to God… it is a girl-child… and that she helps her mother… in the onerous task, she had undertaken…
Amen!
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