Afghanistan - A Collage of Memories

 

I spent fourteen months in Afghanistan, two years after the fall of Taliban in 2001.

Colours of these memories are still sharp and Afghanistan never feels far. It isn’t actually; Kabul is 990 km from Delhi, Mumbai is 1410. 

Events of the last two weeks ceaselessly churn these impressions and a medley of disparate images flashes across the inner eye, every now and then. Rush of memory defies chronology even as I try hard to discipline the unruly surge, in an attempt to capture some in words. 

 

It was a strange world I entered on that cold day on the 1^st  of December in 2003. Kabul looked fetching from air; a valley surrounded by low mountains and the city timidly creeping on to the slopes of the surrounding hills. On ground, it was far from beautiful. Airport was small, noisy, and cluttered. Tall, swarthy, bearded men - wrapped in thick blankets, many with Kalashnikovs slung on shoulders or the barrel menacingly poking from beneath the folds of the shawl – were everywhere. There was not a single barefaced woman. All were shielded in sky-blue hijab, from head to toe. A clutch of cute, chubby children followed these shadowy figures. A din, in a strange tongue, filled the air. It was like entering the swarming bazaar of a feudal town, having travelled back centuries in the course of two hours, since leaving Delhi. Its recent history fresh in mind, the first impression of the country only excited apprehension.

City looked devastated, as I gazed at it from the window of the running taxi. Roads were narrow. Not one building was intact. Outer walls of most were scarred, riddled with ugly pockmarks that did not look like benign vestiges of time. I learnt later that these were the bullet marks on the face of the beleaguered city - relics of three decades long civil war. Parks lay barren. There were hardly any trees, few that stood, were bereft of foliage.

I remember a cold welcome at the Indian embassy, drop to a morose hotel in an embassy car, insipid dinner in the depressingly bare huge dining hall and the restless, anxious night spent in a cold bed. Early next morning I flew to Mazar in a rickety AN-12, belonging to a private Airlines, Kamair. Plane buffeted dangerously every few minutes. There were very few passengers and even the small Aircraft looked big. A stone-faced male steward served us a packet of biscuits and a sachet of cold-drink. It was all very gloomy.

I had come to Afghanistan to work as an anaesthetist in the Indian Medical Mission at Mazar-e-Sharif. Mazar, as the city is usually called, is the fourth largest city in Afghanistan. It is the capital of the Balkh province, situated at the northern end of the country, bordering Uzbekistan. 

Health infrastructure in the country, primitive to start with, had suffered enormously in the decades-long wars. Indian Medical Mission was a major initiative of the Indian government to help rebuild the devastated nation. No Indian doctor in civvies was willing to work here; then one of the most dangerous corners of the globe. Military doctors could not and did not harbour these fears. Mission in Mazar comprised an anaesthetist, a surgeon, a physician, and three paramedics. We were in Afghanistan as civilian doctors, on a diplomatic passport. We did not disclose our military backgrounds. Though Afghan colleagues discretely hinted latter that all, including the Pakistan embassy, were fully aware of the facts.

If Kabul, specifically the Indian Embassy, had felt cold and distant, during my brief sojourn through the city, Mazar couldn’t be warmer. For days, a steady stream of doctors visited us in the hospital and at the residence. We ate meals at the home of the doctors for a week, in the way of farewell to the departing team, and then as welcome to the new. 

Doctors greeted us with an extravagant ceremony that appeared affected in the initial days. Greeting is an elaborate form of social interaction in Afghanistan. Visitor holds your hand reverentially, or folds his own across his chest, as he enquires about the wellbeing of your wife, kids, parents, and then the extended family. He then goes on to the material world, the house, your job, the village and the city – and the country too, for we came from afar. This litany is mouthed in a soft unhurried voice. He then expects the same from you. Even a stranger on a road who has inadvertently stepped on your toes, or a policeman whom you had enquired for the direction, will not forgo this courtesy, before addressing the matter of immediate concern. The custom, which was mildly annoying initially, became a habit, and persists in my demeanour till today, in a much-pruned version.

An abandoned corner of the hospital building had been modified – a huge hall, partitioned by wooden planks – as our residence. Building was constructed of thick, enormous walls of rammed earth. This material, it seems, offered solid protection against shelling. It definitely sheltered us from the beastly cold and the hellish heat of the north Afghanistan desert. I remember our pigeon-hole rooms, the six-inch thick quilts, the diesel Bukhari – a simple but effective contraption of diesel dripping from a canister into a combustion chamber, and a huge exhaust pipe directing the fumes outside. In winter, every corner of the barrack smelled of these fumes. On a draughty day, wind would blow into the chimney, and exit through the combustion chamber. Every surface in the room was then covered in soot. 

We had a retinue of Afghan helps. Naqueeb, our softspoken, child-faced cook, came from the central mountainous region of the country, the Hajarajat, for he was a Hajara. He had learned the Indian language and a little of our cooking too. He could even conjure a spicy dish, he called Sombaar. Karim wiped the carpeted floor of our rooms with a wet broom and washed our clothes too; Jawad and Majeed were our interpreters and spoke fluent Hindustani. This was a parttime job for both; Jawad was saving for his marriage – ‘Sir, it’s so bad in Afghanistan, unlike your country. Boy has to pay bride’s family for her hand.’ Majeed, the serious one, financed his law education with little he earned from us. Rafi our driver, spoke a few words of Hindustani, but in Dari – which is Persian, as spoken in large parts of Afghanistan. Every morning he would patiently work for hours on our battered old Russian van, which I was told had been burnt by the Taliban, before being refurbished and sent to us from Kabul. In winters he would light a fire beneath the engine and sometimes the car did start grudgingly. 

We worked at the Government hospital in Mazar. Facilities at the hospital were basic. We had equipped one of the operation rooms with gadgets from India. Every patient wanted to be operated by our team and seen by our physician. In this vast demand, our means were pathetically inadequate. Waiting time for surgery in our operation theatre was months. 

As I worked with the local doctors, I learned about the wretched state of medical education in the country. Doctors had never seen a cadaver in their Anatomy training. There were no standard text books. They read a few that were in Persian, brought from Iran. They were surprised to know that Anaesthesiologists are doctors too. ‘What do you learn for three years?’ they would ask incredulously. But soon they understood the safety guaranteed by the modern anaesthesia practice. I often administered anaesthesia to patients being operated by Afghan doctors, at times in two-three operating rooms simultaneously. I would be pulled out of my bed, in the horrid cold nights, and half-asleep, follow the ward boy to the Obstetric ward for an emergency Caesarean section, the mother and the foetus almost dead. 

Patients would insist that we operate on them even when we didn’t have adequate equipment or skill for the concerned operation. ‘Insha-Allah! He would survive if you operate. Otherwise, he will surely die, but we will not take him anywhere else.’ We were forced into unimaginable daredevilry in profession, on many occasions, when confronted with this dogged faith and the irredeemable situation.

Doctors, especially the younger ones, were eager to learn. I trained a couple of them in the basics of anaesthesia. They would listen to me with a deference one would reserve for Einstein as he explained relativity. Some of them came from far off provinces. There were no trained anaesthetists in Afghanistan then.

People of Mazar knew us as Doctor-e-Hind, doctors from India. Afghans had unstinted faith in Indian doctors. People would stop us in the streets to tell us about their cured or ailing maladies. Rich would invite us home for lavish dinners. Poor would press on us small bags of dry fruits. Local doctors would lament the absence of physicians from any other nation. ‘India has sent us the doctors, who live with us, teach us, and treat our people. America sends money which disappears in the coffers of our Governor.’ 

Mazar-e-Sharif is named after the Blue mosque, the Shrine of Hazrat Ali, in the centre of the city. Sunni Muslims believe that Hazrat Ali, the fourth Prophet, is buried here. Shias believe his remains are interred at Najaf in Iraq. The huge blue-tiled mosque was near the hospital. Sidewalk hugging the perimeter wall of more than a kilometre was good for brisk walks in the evening. Flocks of white pigeons swooped down rhythmically on the sprawling forecourts of the mosque as devotees threw grains. Poor sat on the pavements waiting for alms. There were many young men among them, maimed and orphaned in the past wars and by the landmines, that till date litter country’s many fields, mountains, valleys, watercourses and cities. Their handsome faces seemed to belie their miserable plight. Hawkers sold clothes, footwear, crockery, Chinese toys, electronic trivia, hot Bulani – deep fried stuffed bread and Manto – stuffed dumplings, on the footpath.

Our main source of communication with people at home was online chat. Chief of Afghan-Besim, the Afghanistan Wireless Communication Company in Mazar, Mr Khalique, a huge man with a throaty laugh, was ever willing to free one of their desktops for our use. The only indulgence he sought was to let him practice English in his conversation with us.

Human suffering services a mammoth industry in the world. Every corner of Mazar teemed with international aid agencies. UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, FAO, WFP, Save the Children US and Save the Children UK, the list was endless. Their officials moved in Pajeros and Land Rovers. They lived alone in huge bungalows. Most were from Nepal and Bangladesh. Westerners were rare. Many befriended us. They visited us at the hospital for minor ailments, and occasionally for an emergency surgery. They often invited us for dinner. Food and wine on these nights were exquisite. 

In no time my apprehensions and prejudices about Afghan citizens melted away. I saw them as long-suffering people of a nation who had lived through destruction of war for three decades now. People my age had seen only the anguish of strife all their youth. Younger ones had been born in war and grew in it. Many had been in prison under Taliban, for ludicrous offences; beard of insufficient length which could not be held in a fist, for instance. They had no secure homes, no source of sustained livelihood and little education to assure one. All doctors, senior or junior, were paid a measly salary. Most were abjectly poor, unless from rich homes. 

Unlike the common opinion at home, Afghan people I came to know, were not obsessed with religion. Only a stray senior doctor would take leave from work to offer the daily namaz. Many would make irreverent jokes about mullahs, the priests. Some, though only in private conversation, said they knew that this talk about God was all balderdash. Mundane worries of livelihood – security in job, means to increase income, health of aging parents, education of children – which are the lot of most people in world, were their preoccupations in life too.

There were many lady doctors in the hospital. At work, they interacted with us freely, like their male colleagues. All wore a headscarf, but none, the head-to-toe hijab. People seemed as fond of daughters as of sons. I saw old men in wards, nursing their sick young daughters for days. Most doctors lived in a joint family and major decisions in the family, it appeared from their talk, were taken by their mothers.

These were jolly, fun-loving people. In the spring months, most Fridays - the weekly holiday - were spent outdoors. A department of the hospital was given the responsibility to organise the picnic. Young doctors left much before dawn, to set up the barbecue and arrange for the food. We reached the venue - usually a sprawling countryside of low undulating hills, spread till horizon, earth carpeted in green grass and small red-coloured flowers – early in the morning. Hurried glass of vodka was gulped in the van and we rolled down the hill to land straight on to the mattresses spread on the ground. Party began instantly; naan, green salad, huge platters of lush seasonal fruits, hot black tea in large flasks, and the constant service of hot sizzling lamb kebabs. 

Afghans are crazy for Bollywood movies, the family dramas on Indian TV channels, and Hindi film songs. No celebration was complete without the songs of Lata, Rafi or Kishor. In every village, every town I visited, starry-eyed fans, old and young alike, would unfailingly ask me if I had met Hema Malini and Dharmendra. Salman and Aishwarya were the favourites of the young.

On a Friday when no departmental outing was planned, my Afghan friends would take me to a nearby village or town, to eat a leisurely meal under the trees in an orchard, a stream gurgling nearby and songs of old Hindi films giving us company. Or for a trek in the desert of Hairatan on the banks of Amu darya, that marks the boundary between Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. 

I remember the picture-perfect orchards of Tashqurghan; trees laden with red, ripe peaches, a rivulet flowing through the garden, surrounded by the desolate barrenness of north Afghanistan desert, that spread till eternity. Tashqurghan was a bustling serai-town in the glory days of the legendary silk route. I also saw large fields of poppy here; a farmer unabashedly, rather proudly, conducted us through them. Young boys were busy lacerating the pods of poppy or scraping the collected gum.  

I visited the old city of Balkh. Balkh was a thriving city about 2500 years ago. Greeks called it Bactria. Alexander passed through the town and took its princess Roxana as his queen. Zarathustra, founder of Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religions of the world, died in the city. City was the central seat of Zoroastrianism then. Ruins of the old city lay in utter neglect; A city that was known as ‘mother of all cities’ in its heyday, was now consumed by the desert. I remember the Samangan town we visited on a very cold day. Rafi had succeeded in cowing the engine of our car. It started with a soft purr and powered the heater too. Naqueeb packed us a picnic of his trademark, carrot-paranthas. Fields abutting the road were covered in snow. We were barred from walking these, for fear of landmines. At many places, a huge pile of armoured tanks, perhaps in hundreds, lay rotting. Not unlike a junkyard of old discarded cars waiting to be sold as scrap. These had belonged to the war-lords, who lay low these days or had reinvented themselves as politicians. Samangan is an ancient city which was a major Budhist centre in 4^th and 5^th centuries under Kushan rulers. We saw the Takht-e-Rustom, probably a Buddhist stupa and the adjoining caves, situated atop a hillock. 

 

The Afghanistan I experienced was chaotic, poor, public officials were often inefficient and corrupt, infrastructure was bedraggled and most public services were primitive at their best. But I also witnessed a country full of hope. Afghans had begun to witness the fruits of peace – won after decades of fighting - and they were busy rebuilding their broken lives. People who had left the country for Iran and Pakistan, during the wars, were returning home. They talked about starting new businesses. Doctors wanted to learn new skills to expand their practice. New restaurants came up in tbe city. There were now good coffee and snacks bar on Mazar streets.  Old, abandoned hotels were restored. Internet cafes mushroomed in bazaars and were always full of young people.  Shops were flush with imported – or perhaps smuggled – goods. I began to notice many bare faced girls in headscarves, in the shopping plazas and at the restaurants, towards the end of my stay. Our interpreters joined English courses so that they could land jobs in the embassies at Kabul.

 

Hope has once again receded from the lives of the people of Afghanistan. It feels as if a cruel hand has swiftly wiped away the last quarter of a century from their lives. Afghanistan is abruptly pushed back into the last millennium, in the year 1996.   

Sometime back, a friend who has maintained contact with me, told me about the new four-storeyed house he had built at great expense. ‘You will live here when you visit me in Mazar soon.’ Until recently he was planning to come to India for training in urology. ‘Mazar doesn’t have a good Urologist. I plan to start a centre for urological surgery in the city.’ 

Last week he messaged, ‘All is lost my friend. Life is disgusting. No hope for a better life.’ 

I have no words to console my Afghan friend. Banal phrases of comfort, invoking faith in the kindness of a loving god, sound cruel in face of such profound misery that refuses to go away.

 

Desolate present stokes the fire of nostalgia. Mind resurrects bits and pieces of images, from within the deepest folds of memory, and they hover in the air, as I wind up this narrative.

Fat, snowy-white doves huddle beneath the small awning at the entrance of our abode in winters, as the arctic wind blows from the Central Asian steppes; Feeble sounds of an old Lata song float from the guard’s hut as I step out in the cold dark night for a smoke; Vibrant bazars in the hazy light of dusk, are redolent with fragrance of freshly baked naans and roasting kebabs; A handsome fruit seller in Balkh, wearing a Tajik cap, sits nonchalantly on his haunches,  amid a pile of huge melons, his arms circling his folded knees, a picture straight out of a medieval town in central Asia; One of my students points towards the snow covered mountain seen from everywhere in Mazar, 'sir, I will take you to my village up there in summer. One has to walk for two days to reach there. You will be able to climb, you are fond of walking'; A bulky cake covered in embroidered cloth, is delivered at our doorstep on Eid – a gift from Dr Zubaida who is a senior surgeon at the hospital; Friends drive me back to my room after dinner on my last night in Mazar, car crawls painfully slow on the deserted road, 'you drunk? Or the vehicle giving trouble?', 'what's the hurry friend, you leave tomorrow, let me slow the clock, one last time', replies my friend who is at the wheels.

(I have changed the names of the persons appearing in the narrative.)