agro-fair in yakawlang, bamyan

One giant pumpkin and a big sunflower - my brother commented they look straight out of a Harry Potter plot. Indeed, images of development and positive stories on Afghanistan are that rare and fantastic, although I think its in the positive stories - success stories of Afghanistan's farmers and beekeepers, fruit vendors and livestock owners, that we can see the true face of Afghanistan. Images of tanks and caving roads and crumbling wartorn buildings have become mind-numbingly dull for me. When I stare into the alcoves of the Bamyan Buddhas, I find the space and time for renewal. What fascinates me about this country is the resolve of its people to recollect and celebrate their lives.

Nowhere is this renewal a greater reality than in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan, characterized by a harsh topography, underdeveloped social and physical infrastructure, and severe climatic variations. For four months, most of Bamyan remains covered under snow and most roads close and the terrain turns inhospitable. But despite this, Bamyan the main province in the region is home to an estimated population of 518,667 individuals employing a diversity of livelihood strategies. Agriculture and livestock being the most important modes of production - clearly contributing to subsistence and survival. Many collect winterfeed and firewood for months preceding the onset of snow - winter - a time for families to close in with some taking to weaving carpets by the flickering light of a lamp and the palpable warmth of the bukhari. Bamyan is also home to fables and folklore, distinctive creative and performing arts, notably the handicrafts like Namats and Barak, and the Hazara community who have as a cultural entity seen more violence in the last century than any other ethnicity in South and Central Asia. Their persistence and pride in the face of adversity is admirable.

Equally remarkable are these pictures of farmers from all over the district of Yakawlang who had gathered in a show of solidarity. They brought with them produce from their field. Fruit and vegetables, dehydrated apricots. Jars of golden honey. And women participants displaying their handicrafts, embroidered scarves, carpets and kilims. It was a colorful celebration of human enterprise. The farmers interacted with one another and discussed the experience with new cultivars. Some that need more nitrogen fertilizer, others that grew well in shallow soil. Products from Afghan cultivars were however quite limited, with many cultivars whose products were on display being exotic. It is felt that during decades of war and ensuing destruction, many germplasm endemic to Afghanistan were lost forever. There is an urgent need to establish a germplasm bank in Afghanistan to ensure the remaining few do not disappear. Indeed, efforts at regenerating rangelands and pastures are underway. With it many undocumented wild species, sources of nutrients for animals and fuelwood, may continue to flourish, contributing to the restoration of the unique biodiversity of the Central Highlands.

The shops in Yakawlang

Efforts at regeneration bear greater significance in their context. A poignant memorial to human suffering was situated 100 meters from the agro-fair site. January 2001, a row of shops in Yakawlang Bazaar set ablaze by a group of Talibs before lining all the shop keepers - more than hundred Hazaras mercilessly shot within point blank range. They apparently were entirely unprepared and had resolved to surrendering to the oppressive regime. And not far away from the site of cold surrender and brutal muder is the product of eternal beauty and source of endless inspiration - the lakes of Band-e-Amir, and located thereabouts is the shrine of Imam Ali.

Here, a beautiful red wild flower by the edge of the lake swayed in the wind that rippled just above the lapis blue surface of the lake.

Photos by Atanu De

everyman kolkata

A rickshaw pulls along the tram way.. a tram castes its long shadow.. yellow amabassador cabs at a distance.. perhaps further a t junction and a line of old decrepit buldings as honking horns reach a crescendo snarled up with the wires overhead and slow down as they travel through the windows into the mildewed high ceiling rooms with paints flaking off and crevices slowly returning to dust. Descending the stairs circling around the rusty heavy buzzing elevator stepping out on to the pavement with disarranged tiles, bended railings and open gutters. The rickshaw puller lowers the seat for me to descend and the man who steps out of the building waits for his ride back into the inner alleys of kolkata.

Photo by Atanu De

pul-e-khumri - a mirror and a reflection

The hydel-plant barrage running across the river, to its right the textile factory

This is about a city that has been home for me for the past three months - Pul-e-Khumri. The exploration began one friday when my friend and I decided to hike up the mountains stretching along the westside of the river. We walked up through a hillside settlement to reach a site called the Tapa-e-Massoud or the Mount of Massoud - a small green block structure atop the lowest hill marked by a big board with a larger-than-life image of Ahmed Shah Massoud.

The green block is a sacred place, it has no direct openings on its side - a ladder leads one to the top from where residents drop old Korans that have over the years tattered and being sacred are prohibited from being openly trashed. The caretaker lived further uphill and we met his two sons. They live in a vast evergrowing unauthorized settlement spreading across the inner folds and reaches on the other side of the hill. Hidden from view from where I live, I for the first time got a sense of Pul-e-Khumri the city it truly was.

A general view gives one a sense of the hardships for the residents of this settlement. These are un-serviced settlements, water is carried uphill in yellow plastic barrels loaded upon donkeys, there is no electricity, and sewage disposal remained a mystery. Perhaps a part of the 85 percent of the city’s area that does not have the formal status for being governed by the municipality, and hence all urban amenities and services elude them.

Settlements are as old as 60 years and some that have expanded within the recent decade, with internally displaced people and returnees and refugees. There are different kinds of settlements, hillside communities of Pashtuns and Tajiks, then one of the Hazaras who fled from war atrocities two decades ago, or the settlement of the textile factory workers and their descendents, et al. The textile factory being the oldest, it brought in its wake settlers from all over Afghanistan and the tiny little village grew into an important urban center. Homes within these settlements also vary from ones own to makeshift housing. Most settlements lack basic amenities and the hydelplant generated power does not reach out to most segments of the city’s 20,000 population. Water supply is also extremely limited with most relying on canals and drains and the river. It’s a common sight to see refuse being let into a drain which further down is considered alright for washing vegetables.

The city’s industrial activity has seen a complete halt and notwithstanding the recent renewal, there has been an overall decline - the textile factory that used to employ over 3000 people, has no more than 600 people currently, or the cement factory that has only recently opened up production. On the other hand, population continues to increase and with it the imperfections of an informal labour market, wages are low, street-begging on the rise, tenurial insecurity, labour insecurity - together plunge more and more residents through the downward spiral of poverty.

The Caretaker and his two sons

We continued our walk over the ridge that rose and fell until we arrived at the highest peak - overlooking the city to our left, and the vast green undulating lower peaks and valleys of Samangan to the right. The river from the top looked blue and calm, a hydel-barrage that caused water upstream to impound and spread across a larger area – this area clearly required dredging failing which the little electricity the plant produces too would become a thing of the past. We could see the newly pitched buzkashi ground and the promenade along the right side of the river - attemps made at beautifying the city. Women however are discouraged from using these public spaces. Often, Afghan cities have a Bagh-e-Zenana or a park exclusively for women, but Pul-e-Khumri doesn't have one yet. They are still barred from public events such as Buzkashi gatherings.

Further to the right is the seventies style tower-silo, easily the biggest structure in Pul-e-Khumri. Silos are structures for bulk storage of agricultural produce, grains especially, or fermented feed (silage) the advantage being that in these kinds of tower silos the material can be packed and piled well because of its own weight. The domineering silo may however be empty from the inside, not literally though – it sadly mirrors the Afghan reality.

As agricultural production competes with cheaper exports from neighboring countries, centralized storage facilities such as the silo are depressingly incommensurate with the real needs. Cheaper exports find their way to inner markets faster than the local grains take to reach the centralized silo and back to the markets. It will take some time for Pul-e-Khumri to reclaim its importance as a vibrant urban center. The way ahead may not be recreating the past. With changing circumstances, urban-rural linkages have to be redeveloped, service sector would have to be improved with newer opportunities and increased revenues no more set as distant goals, better policies and good governance would have to be accorded priority.

It was perhaps the perspective from the height, the vastness-tininess of the city that makes one realize how the silo, the cement factory or the textile factory are not the real nerve centers of the city. What caused the city to pulsate is the river as the source of water, the mountains the source of forage and fuel, the history of bringing people together, and the people their collective livelihood strategies and their survival instincts.

Photos: Atanu De

the inner-head and the outer-shell

Headgears being sold at a shop in Taloqan

Afghanistan really got me thinking about headgears. Apart from serving a variety of obvious purposes such as protection against weather and keeping ones hair tidy, headgears and coiffures are also a mode of marking one’s social and cultural distinction. There are various forms of headgear which include the large turbans with a long end hanging down the back – these are called lengi.

They are similar to the turbans worn by men in Rajasthan and Gujarat in India, except that first a skullcap is worn and then a long piece of cloth tied around the rim of this cap, which is usually finely embroidered. Once the cloth is tied around the rim, just the head of the cap remains visible. Lengis are seldom worn by the young in the presence of the elderly and are most exclusively worn by the senior most male members of a household. The younger lot sticks to the caps – choosing the embroidered ones for special occasions. Mainly members from the Pashtun community and sometimes Tajiks and Uzbeks wear the lengi, other communities have other headgears, like the neat around astrakhan hats, woolen knitted hats and large fur sheepskin hats.

One popular headgear is the pakoul, more commonly referred to as the ‘Massoud cap’ named after the Afghan war legend Ahmed Shah Massoud who is perhaps the biggest most ubiquitous icon in modern Afghanistan. This also delinks the cap he donned from its socio-cultural precedents. Massoud is a controversial icon and so the cap now bears added content for the signifier and the signified.

The headgear is also about the head. The emphasis on the head goes beyond its biological importance as the seat of the brain that controls the body. The physical head also holds social importance – that of social functions such as perception, communication and identity. And so does a social head - be a leader, a credo, totem or a presiding deity. To wear a headgear then becomes a way of showing your allegiance to the one thing you hold supreme. A person with unkempt hair suddenly seems devoid of a social standing, a reference point or social allegiance. To be socially acceptable is to pay heed to one's aapearance, behaviour, clothes and hair. And headgears are central or rather apical to this make-up. The insistence on the Hijab for women and headgears for men in sections of the Afghan society reveals an enhanced allegiance to Islam. The insistence on headgears that distinguish the chapendaz - the master player, from other players in a game of buzkashi is to show the latters' subservience to the former.

Mosafeds wearing headgears at a Buzkashi Match

People variously wear, exhibit, remove their headgears as a mark of respect, pride or subordination. While, when inside a church its considered impolite to keep ones’s hat on, in Sikhism and Islam people cover their heads to express their humility before their god’s pervasive lordship. Some headgears are worn on bended knees, others on swollen chests. Some help bridge differences, others divide. Often the same headgear can be both unifying and divisive.

There is also the inner head and the outer shell. Inner head represents ones cultural inheritance and social memory. Its invisibility likens it to powers beyond the corporal and people articulate this by investing time and aesthetics to making and wearing headgears and coiffures that constitute the outer-shell. Headgears, or their absence, is a metaphor for the frontier between the inner and the outer mysteries, the go-between dwelling space for mankind. A physical space where human beings strive to protect themselves from uncertainties, a political space where social distinctions and allegiances are nurtured, and a cultural space where rituals and symbols mediate to normalise inexplicable links.

Photos: Atanu De

on inviolate spaces

What makes some spaces inviolate? Barbed wires. Social fencing. Fear of entering. Risks real and mythic. Danger. Sacrality. Having been interested in sacred spaces, I have been drawn to the notion of inviolate spaces for some time. We have heard about how nature is left to regenerate on its own, and in order to contain human disturbance, these spaces are invested with sacrality, and a strong notion of punishment if this sacrality is violated.

If sacred spaces were meant to keep a notion of pristine nature alive, some spaces in Afghanistan were meant to keep a notion of barrenness and doom alive. These are spaces strewn with land mines and many who have violated these spaces have met serious injuries or lost their lives - areas that have borne footprints of pastoralists, agriculturists, traders before being mined in recent decades of warfare to limit movements or advancing troops.

With the end of war, the presence of these spaces still invades the process of recovery. Imagine a pastoralist having to move with vast spaces serving as insurmountable obstacles. While many areas are being slowly demined, there are some which are left as they are. These spaces at the same time aid social remembrance. Places of commemoration, I realized need not necessarily be those that are frequently visited, they can sometimes also be inviolate spaces.

A 62 Russian Battle Tank and the Derelict House above

This is to narrate my foray into one such inviolate space that forced me to think about the possible factors that kept it alive in the collective consciousness and as a physical reality. We were on our way to Bamyan, when 30 minutes upon crossing one settlement we found a narrow valley to our right with a tank at some distance. We started walking towards the tank and ahead of us lay something we were totally unprepared for.

Nosecones/Warheads hurled from Artillery Tanks

Some ten hectares of space that seem to have been both forgotten and kept alive. It laid in the grips of an eerie past. There were hulks of battle tanks all around, and caches of ammunition scattered all over. Sacks opened up with ordnance spilling out, not a bird hovered around the place. Further to the right on top of a mound was a derelict house. Just upon approaching it we found a neat heap of cartridges used in machine guns. The house had barbed-wired windows and a door ajar that creaked as we slightly pushed it to stare into a darkness smelling of dust, and unfamiliarity. I took one gingerly step inside and took some photos. There were landmine shells scattered around. Rockets, grenades, ammo containers, the place must have been a one-time military hub.

Land mine shells outside a cave opening further uphill

It was an odd place, we walked down the mound, crossed a tank and looked at the other side, where there were some ruins behind another medium weight tank. Here too we found caches of ammo lying untouched, the silver of the shell gleaming in the sunshine, it felt like it was all from the day before. Three meters to my right lay some some more warheads and other explosives and an ammo box with the Russian star impressed on it. It was not difficult to imagine that once weapons were being brought here and supplied to wage war with the opposing forces. War had taken the entire population in its sweep, there were commanders appointed for every manteqa (the notion of an area in Afghanistan) and soldiers being trained in hundreds, and arms traveling lengths and breadths across rivers and valleys and steep mountains. Old forts from the times of Genghis Khan atop flat rocky cliffs were reconverted into military bastions, with modern day ordnance replacing fourteenth century cannons. It was a renewed siege over histories of battles and surrender across this harsh landscape.

Here with each discovery our movements slowed down. We pressed our feet into the ground as we craned our necks to see what lay behind, below or above one thing or the other. We were watching every step for fear of some unexploded ordnance and breathing in the smell of time standing still. We may have been over-reacting but to lay eyes on vast amounts of ammo still unsued, the stuff that kills people, and lying unattended, kept our senses alert.

What pervades this space was more than just unattended ammo and battle tanks, it was a reality left to freeze and inspire awe. There was no warning, no barbed-wire off-limits signage, there was not a soul who would help bridge this space with anything common. It was abundantly clear that everyone knew about it and yet no one uttered one word concerning the same. How else would one explain this space which was once abruptly withdrawn from and then left to stay the same for years that followed. Life has resumed, and memories still alive, the presence of such spaces provide the context to this interplay of present and past. Another thirty minutes drive beyond this space was another settlement. We had crossed this inexplicable valley between one lived reality and the other, and one memory and the other.

Photos: Atanu De

bonfire before the day of colors, desert rajasthan 1998

I will also from time to time post some pages from my old notebooks. This one's an old snap, from one of perhaps my best night outs. It's always nice to revisit old memories, especially those ones that grow with time.

The evening acquainted me to a facet of Western Rajasthan that can only be known to wanderers through moonlit dark blue sandscapes – another time and space. This was my first trip to desert Rajasthan and my friend Jeff and I wanted to write an article on the ecoreligion of the Bishnois. After spending one entire day meeting Bishnoi elders and photographing deer and their sacred spaces we found ourselves looking at sand dunes yonder. We were standing in the twilight zone, a choice to be made between retreating to the village and embracing the unknown in the dark that awaited.

We began treading along the drifts and outlines of sand dunes somewhere in the middle of the Thar desert, that blurred, then darkened and soon spread to envelope the sky and the sand in deep blue tones. From the other side rose the full moon, shining on but also distancing itself as we lost ourselves in the dark (and happily so). Looking up the sky and dissolving the remaining few stars with our lazy tired strides, with sand in our eyes and a keen draught running through our veins, we were slower than usual. We knew we were in no rush to reach any destination, carefree - what times may bring. At some distance two camels with men riding on their backs appeared. They called out their Marwari ahoy and moved on. The night grew darker and quieter, as if some hermit had cast his spell upon the winds to move without a hiss, the sands to sweep without a trace, and the moon to rise without a sound. Because something was about to begin.

Soon from some distance through the slightly cold desert winds came drum beats gently beating to some unknown rhythm, some secret anticipation. Then appeared some light here and there, mysterious fire awakened by the beat of the drums. We approached closer to the warmth now exuding a familiar rhythm, made more real by the calls and cries of people gathering, who were now visible as the glow turned into the first flames of the closest bonfire.This was the night before the festival of Holi, when people all over India play with colours celebrating the arrival of spring. The legend of Holi involves the evil king Hiranyakashipu who forbade his son - Prahlad from worshipping Vishnu. But then upon finding Prahlad disobeying his order, he decreed his sister – Holika, who was known to be immune to fire, and his son to sit on a pyre as punishment. While Holika burnt to death, Prahlad who asked Vishnu for his safety survived the fire. People commemorate the immolation of Holika with a public bonfire, and celebrate the following day with colors upholding their faith and beliefs.

The deserts in Rajasthan especially come alive this evening, people from close by hamlets bring firewood gathered over weeks. Musicians come and children especially bring with them all their little plans, their store of songs and dance and fistful of gusto, as they fling sesame candies and groundnuts into the fire sending flinders to the air. And there that evening women, men and really old women and men sat around the bonfire. They welcomed us and gave us some fire wood to throw into the burning fire. Soon the young were jumping over and across the fire, making merry go rounds and singing folk songs in their rustic voices. An old man let go off his walking stick and moved his feeble-with-age body to the beat of the drums and laughing with all his missing teeth gleaming in the light from the fire. His old wife seated with other women joined her hands and smiled both embarrassed and pleased.

I took part in the revelry and sang a well known folk number – nimuda nimuda and the young connected to my hopeless singing with a familiarity that could have only come from generations of culture that blended with its nature, which they embodied in their smiles and guttural singing. The result was pure resonant music. The song is not so old, and was penned by a middle-aged contemporary Manganiyar folk singer when he was 12, but the tradition of folk singing in this part of the world goes back to many centuries, traveling through vast open spaces via mendicant musicians and festivals and customs, bringing sedentary communities scattered across the desert within one cultural fold. This narrative may be cultural essentialism and romanticism at its best, but come to think of it, to see over 70 people walk a couple of kilometers from neighboring hamlets for a bonfire and doing so for years exceeding the age of the old man who surely needed no stick to perform a dance that he knew from the manner born, the sense of community among those participating in the festival then must be really strong. The bonfire was settling down and young boys walked barefoot over the smoldering ashes of the dying fire and asked me to try the stunt. I approached the floor but retreated. Jeff and Matthieu, my travelmates accepted the offer and like the rest of the boys joined the exclusive club of modern day Prahlads.

We were later offered a meal of halwa and roti and a place to sleep in a nearby hamlet. We ate and then finger licked this most delicious meal, and then decided to continue our journey into the unknown because now the night carried a certain familiarity we knew where it came from. The sand dunes looked brighter under the silver-dark blue-black sky and even more magnificent was the the sight of dark figures of returning revelers disappearing in the moonlit horizon. They had left their deep footprints in the winds of change, no one can ever lose one’s way here. We found ourselves a depression to lay out our sleeping bags and slept on desert sands drfiting beneath our souls.

The next morning we walked back to the roadside town where we were soon thrown colors at by a group of men. Holi is also a time when people disregard social norms and indulge in general merrymaking. They drink hemp sherbets, stuff up their tummies with sweets and bullies of the community swell up their chests and are sadly tolerated - one of the reasons why I never quite enjoyed the festival as a child, apart from visiting family and friends and indulging in some harmless exchanges of colors and sweets. But the revelers in Lohawat were gentle or may be it was the bond from the night before, that a little bit of uncanny merrymaking was not only easy for us, but quite enjoyable too.

deep unreal blue at 3000 m asl

I had to write something about my trip to the five lakes of Band-e-Ameer situated high up in the Koh-e-Baba range of Hindu Kush mountains. The experience had left me wordless and it took me two weeks to begin to write about these ablsolutely unreal lakes. From Bamiyan, a drive westwards through an undulating landscape bereft of vegetation and sparsed with settlements, hardly indicated the waters that lay preserved in its barrenness.

The point where the car stopped we could sense the mysterious presence of the lakes, but no moist nip, no sound of water, just a quaint whiff of something unknown in the air. At some distance, we could see a waterfall off a travertine wall. Beyond that was Band-e-Haibat. A five meter climb and there it was - the rich blue spread, with the rays of the sun that came piercing through the slight chill in the air and stirred up its ease with glimmering clarity. Surrounding the lake were mountains, some that towered high like castles chiselled by winds. The one word to sum up the experince - awesome!

The lakes contain mineral rich water oozing out of the faults and fractures, that also deposit calcium carbonate precipitate forming white travertine dams - light-colored porous calcite deposited from solution in ground or surface waters and forming, among other deposits, stalactites and stalagmites.

The five constituent lakes of Band e Ameer are Band e Gholaman (slaves), Band e Qambar (Caliph Ali's slave), Band e Haibat (grandiose), Band e Panir (cheese), Band e Pudina (wild mint) and Band e Zulfiqar (the sword of Ali). Band e Haibat is the biggest and the deepest of the five with an average depth of approx. 80 meters, as estimated by a diving team. This lake is also the most accessible. Right next to it is the shrine of Caliph Ali who is believed to have raised the walls to dam a dangerous river and bring about the conversion to Islam of the local pagan king.

Behind the shrine is the climb to the plateau that surrounds the lakes from all sides and offers stunning overviews of the Band-e-Haibat and further the three other lakes. Its a seven km round stretch, locating you right between the spectacular skies that swirl around the magnicent limestone cliffs and lakes that that lie below shimmering with indescribable shades of blue-green to blue-blue.. to blue-unknown! They are a picture of the sky painted by mystical forces with rich sub-terranean colors, they are drops from the thundering sky preserved in fables and folklores from the forces of nature.

These lakes situated at such heights and in the middle of nowherish rugged arid landscapes of Hazarajat, Central Afghanistan make them perhaps one of the world’s greatest natural wonders. They have been declared part of a national park and are also a UNECSO listed world heritage site. A UNEP paper also attested to the fact that the travertine walls are still intact and the unique vegetation has remained unchanged. As we walked down the cliff face to reach the small strip of land that separated the first lake from the other lakes, we came closer to vegetation that seemed like the beginning of ecological-succession itself. Moss, reeds, they blended beauifully with streams of overflowing water from one lake to the other, forming celestial pools of blue-green water. Wading through them sent drfits of timelessness through your being. I sat under a water fall, and Vincent swam in the lake.

We returned to the original point after the round about hike. Here Vincent quite didn't enjoy a meal of fish fresh from the lake. I was still soaked in the expereince so ate very little. I tried taking several pictures of the lake, but none came even close to what I had experienced. There was also the option of taking a boat to the center of the lake, but the look of those swanboats pretty much kept us away from trying it out. In all the two of us were pretty happy with our walk around the lake, fathoming its unfathomable depths, and trying to reason with this unreal side of nature.

Photos: Atanu De

sifting through the bamiyan buddhas

the seated buddha in the background, prayer flags from an islamic shrine in the foreground

This is my second stop along the silk route after Mazar-e-Sharif. The Bamiyan Valley, made legendary in Huan Tsangs travelogues from 630 AD where he described the place as a flourishing Buddhist centre "with more than ten monasteries and more than a thousand monks", and noted that both Buddha figures were "decorated with gold and fine jewels". The date of this remarkable historical site is contested, from the Graeco-Bactrian, 2nd-1st C BC. (Numismatic); Kushan-Sasanian, 2nd-7th C. (Ceramic, stylistic); to the Turk-pre-Mongol Islamic period, 7th-13th C. (Ceramic, architectural). Yes, the chances are that this large monastic complex has been fashioned by these many influences.

The Bamiyan caves and the three Buddhas are part of an extensive area along the foot of the sandstone cliffs bordering the north side of the valley. Measurements: total length of 1800 m the cliff face is honeycombed with some 750 artificial caves, all forming a part of an extensive Buddhist monastic centre. Some are very large and were once elaborately decorated in sculptures and frescos. The two large standing statues of Buddha, 53 m and 38 m high respectively, with a third seated Buddha between the two. These statues were carved out of living stone, and the details were modeled in mud mixed with straw and coated with stucco, in keeping with design styles of the Gandhara School of Art, such as the long drooping ears, the distinct coiffure, et al.

Talk about influences, this monastic complex had housed hermits for close to nine centuries, and then the period that followed saw attempts by invaders at destroying the complex – some say Aurangzeb had employed heavy artillery, and Genghis Khan fired cannon balls at them! But the statues survived the many injuries, leading on to preparations for a final assault that begun during the Taliban years in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar was initially in favor of preserving the statues as it would have been a source for much needed revenue for the country, but some 400 Islamic clerics across Afghanistan insisted on cracking down all ‘un-Islamic’ faces of the Afghan society. The Bamiyan statues were in their warped opinions against Islamic tenets and despite international plea, including money, the Talibs brought together large amounts of ammunition and went ahead to blow up the statues. Not only that, they carried out explosions inside the monastery, causing deep fissures within the structure, exposing it to more erosion, scraped out the frescoes, and shot bullets into the faces, and defaced the interior walls with damning graffiti and footprints. These were actions of a mind that must have thought through all possible means of showing their hate for things they feared undermine the supremacy of their’s only God.

footprints of talibs inside one of the cells in the monastery

Efforts at restoring the site are underway, including questions of whether or not the statues are restored to their original glory. Apparently UNESCO has ruled that out, but the decision really centers on a larger concern – how prevalent and widespread was the opposition to the Buddhas and what would be the resistance within Afghanistan should their restoration be carried out. Whether or not the rubble is pieced together or a new statue carved out or nothing done except perhaps preserve the site, the question of faith and tolerance remains as critical as ever. The Buddhas had survived all this time and the niches will remind all of their past, comment on the present and perhaps tell what future may hold. Its continuity is a telling tale of faith unknown to religious fundamentalists and its destruction is one of the many dangerously tangible outcomes of this intolerance, even more heinous when during the same year, not far from the valley in the vilage of Yawkawlang, the talibs massacred some 300 Shiite Hazaras.

The detritus, the debris, and the hollow niches are then scars that monuments bear as reminders of a past that we must not forget.

fatima looking into one of the caves along the monastery's long sandstone facade, she most likely belongs to one of the many refugee families still occupying the caves, many have been resettled elsewhere

Pics by Atanu De

scarecrows, try me!

Some bull shit, straw, old rags, yellow plastic, sticks and voila you have what it takes to make the most distinguished scarecrows ever. Scarecrows would seem of scant interest to anyone, but not for a crazed anthropologist who would deliver long discourses on ‘oh these scarecrows are not just to scare birds away but are also a farmer’s companion and even ‘god’ like to many.’ You know look up at all the different types of scarecrows, study the material used, look up their significance and even bull shit would seem straight out of a profound cosmology!

Frankly, I am bit of a crazed anthro-apologist myself. What do you expect, for someone who’s got the world to look at, given everything else in Afghanistan is off limits - women, mountains still covered with inviolate gloom - thanks to the landmines, and entirely everything after sunset as we beat a quiet retreat into our rooms given the frustratingly early curfew hours. You carry with yourself barren poetics of an arid landscape, ghosts, sprits, shrines, battlefield remains, and well.. scarecrows.
Behind.. or rather around every scarecrow is of course the farmers’ plot. As we went around during summers to melon plots and mung bean plots to track farmers’ experiences at accessing water for irrigation, what struck me were these absolutely simple yet surreal scarecrows. These guys are no petrified fools with their hands perennially outstretched, they are tied to windstrings moving blowing them most animatedly. Take a close look at them, each ones distinct from the other, they are a unique population of postmodern scrap dolls, indigenous installation art, stuck into the thin line between the mythic and the real, the utile and absurd.

Their presence transforms the landscape into something like an illustration. If I were to stretch my imagination further, I would invent rituals of their first assembly, scarecrows in the still of the night strirring up a sudden gust of wind, causing parts of themselves to snap off and meet some high tide far far away.
I could tell the tale of one lonely scarecrow that lived a thousand years, watching over his master’s winter wheat, till the day his master returned wandering through the dust covered mountains to find his loyal scarecrow standing there, the scarecrow upon seeing his master after many a harsh summer and glacial winter weeps his last tears and falls to the ground.

Scarecrows are beyond stillness and silence. I feel like a sacrecrow myself, something strange telling me, moving me, watching over me, making me do something I dont know. Stilled by the enormity of space I may be, or the vast space stilled by my silence, nothing inspires me more than this very stillness.

Photos: Atanu

the blue tiled tomb of the exalted

It was one of those weekends, and we decided to use the occasion to travel westward to the ancient city of Mazar-e-Sharif. A one-time trading hub, its importance as an urban center goes back to the Bactrian empire and the Silk Route. Mazar-e Sharif is located in one of Afghanistan's most fertile regions, extensively irrigated by the Balkh River and producing cotton, grain, and fruit. The town's main industries included flour milling and the manufacturing of silk and cotton textiles. Its main attraction remains the numinous blue-tiled shrine of Hazrat Ali.

Ali, the son-in-law and cousin of Prophet Mohammad is the cause of the polemic between Sunni and Shia Islam. So while according to the Shiites, Ali is second in the order of succession after the Prophet, to Sunni Muslims he is fourth. Afghanistan has a Sunni majority and despite Ali's significance in Shia Islam, Sunni Muslims in Afghanistan continue to venerate the shrine of a man considered one of Islam's greatest heroes.

There are many interpretations of Ali's shrine in Mazar-e-Sharif.

As per popular account, Ali was murdered in Kufa in 661 and then buried in Najaf in present day Iraq. But then the Afghans maintain - that fearing his body would be mutilated and his shrine desecrated in Najaf, his body was secretly exhumed, hauled upon the back of a she-camel that was made to run as far as it could. The camel collapsed in a site that later came to be known as Mazar-e-Sharif, or the ‘tomb of the exalted’. This is pure legend as a mullah was visited upon by Ali in his dream and told so, and thus he consecrated this spot which for five hundred years was marked by a small stone, and then in twelfth century, a small tomb replaced the stone, soon laid waste by Genghis Khan to be rebuilt again in the fifteenth century as a grand mausoleum. The tiling is as recent as early nineteenth century.

The shrine of Hazrat Ali is an architectural splendor. The structure enfolding the burial chamber has many sides to it, all covered up in beautiful blue-green tiles of a myriad pattern and lights. We visited the shrine in the evening, glimmering with the hues of Central Asian twilight. Every way you walked there was something new to be discovered. All sides were distinct from one another, yet as one circled around the shrine one could partake in the music of its architecture, like a whirling dervish would seek union with God.

Equally engrossing was to look at the many visitors to the shrine. Women in blue and black burkhas breezing through the marbled compound, people reposing in arched niches of the shrine, an old man transfixed to the music echoing around the place, yet another old man taking it easy at the entrance to the shrine. Just outside was a dovecote with innumerable doves flurrying out and about the lawns that surround the shrine. There was a feeding platform, where for five Afghanis you could feed them grains. Next to it sat a man with a long flowing beard selling prayer beads.

Mazar-e-Sharif is also renowned for the nawroz celebrations. People in large numbers gather at Ali’s shrine to seek his blessings and the city is all beautified and lit up in the evening for the occasion. Nawroz is the traditional Persian new year holiday in Iran, countries in Central Asia, and also in India, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Zanzibar, Albania, among others. The records of its celebrations date back to the Achaemenid Empire. As well as being a Zoroastrian holiday, it is also a holy day for adherents of the Baha'i and Sufi faith, and much celebrated in Islamic Afghanistan as well.

The Talibs banned all celebrations for Nawroz, considered by them as an un-Islamic heathen festival. However, people secretly marked the day during those years, and after the regime ceased to exist, and all draconian restrictions lifted, open festivities - including those that marked the Afghan New Year resumed. Indeed, a festival that brings people of different faiths, known to have suffered politically motivated conflicts with one another.

Just like Mazar-e-Sharif, a prime pilgrimage for Shiia Muslims but equally venerated by Sunni Muslims, differences naturally dissolving here – be it during the colorful Nawroz gathering, or in the evening prayers against the majestic west face of the tomb. And in the – Allah Ho, Allah Ho, Ho, Ho, Ho… chants and incantations that entrance all and infuse an extraordinary spiritual resonance to its tangible constitution.

Photos: Atanu De

beyond the lost world of ai khanou

(Overview of the Kokcha joining the Amu to the North, and Ai Khanou on the right bank)

This land is old, very old. Older than the mountains breathing through timeless skyscapes. Older than the earliest settlers, ancient civilizations, hunters and gatherers, the peasants, artisans, poets and artists, rulers and the ruled, the buried and the looming.

We traveled northwards through this old land towards the Amu river (Oxus in ancient times) that divides Afghanistan from Tajikistan, and provided water and spirit for the many ancient settlements, including the ancient site of Ai Khanou, home to Bactrian settlers and successive occupation and abandonment. We drove up a narrow winding road to a tabletop that overlooked the Amu river to the north and the Kokcha river flowing from the south meeting the Amu Darya. Down dale was Ai Khanou, surveyed by the French Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan in the seventies. Many of its treasures were being housed in various safes, and there still remained a vast potential for organized excavations.

The survey was meant to inform times dating back to an Afghanistan that was at the crossroads of West, Central and South Asia, and central to Greek, Central Asian Nomadic and Buddhist/Zoroastrian movements. We are talking about the known Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan that began circa 2000 BC. A period that saw the successive rise and fall of the Persian, Median, Greek, Mauryan and Bactrian empires. Following the defeat of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, in 328 BC, Alexander the Great entered the territory of present-day Afghanistan to capture Bactria (present-day Balkh). Ai Khanou was one of the many Bactrian settlements along the Amu running along the northern frontiers of Bactria.

However, what followed from the nineteen seventies was a period of uncertainty. The survey had to be discontinued, but what instead began was unorganised looting. Treasures from the sites were mindlessly and brusquely removed. All the looters were looking for big relics, and in their rage much damage was caused to many smaller artifacts. Today Ai Khanou is a vast stretch of continuous ditches where aged tortoises bump around scattered pieces of terracotta, definitely dating back to ancient times, lost in the chaos of time, to put these pieces together would seem like a formidable task. But then again, this land is older than the treasures lost from the desecrated museum in Kabul, older than the Bamiyan Buddhas bombed out from what remains are just cavities. Older than the many archaeological site that after years of organized excavations fell into the hands of loot diggers. Older than the manuscripts and records that were lost, burnt, ruined, dust and ash. For the enormity of memory keeping, the losses encountered in the preceding decades are indeed woeful. Efforts are underway to put together Afghanistan’s heritage. But heritage is more than museology. Its about memories, and what are deemed worthy of being remembered.

To awaken memory is a spiritual exercise, carried forward through generations. Yes, monuments and big cities that were built for an eternity have disappeared and the extant may also rubble away and disappear. But activity along the Amu would continue. We heard a shepherd playing his flute, the music pulling us towards him. The language of his music was older than everything else. Further away from him we found the river. Here, where goldminers were busy at work. Laboriously unearthing the sediments brought by the river’s flow and delving through it for pieces of gold. An ancient occupation for a valuable metal. Older perhaps than the Bactrian age.

Indeed, the river may have changed its course but its substance hasn’t changed.

(Goldminers at work in the Amu River, across the river is Tajikistan)

Photo 1: Vincent Thomas; Photo 2: Atanu De

a note on commemoration

(A Tank Beyond a Burial Ground)

If the Afghan landscape is marked by wreck that are testimonies of violence and war, it is also dotted with shrines and burial spots commemorating human lives. In a country where evidences of a glorious history have been methodically buried, there also stand these new memorials of a past extremely painful.

On our way to Taloqan, lies the shell of an old abandoned bus, metamorphosed into a pilgrimage by those who visit the shrine to remember a tragedy and pay homage to those killed inside the bus. A shrine leaning to the ground spreading over a tumultuous period in history, yet looking up to the sky in an act of remembrance, as flags hoisted up to spears extending out of the hulk and scraps of cloth tied onto different parts of the bus flap against and blow in the wind, carrying wails, prayers and hopes of the visitors to the vast beyond.

About twenty years ago, in a country caught between the Mujahids and the Russians, there was a brief moment of peace and a bus packed with revelers from a marriage party was making it's way home with the bride and groom among the passengers. Travelling by the same bus was an influential commander, enough for the Russian soldiers to hurl a powerful grenade upon the bus, killing all sixty people, including the commander and the newly married couple.

The Nine-year long Soviet war in Afghanistan was between the Soviet forces and the anti-government Mujahideen insurgents. The Soviets used air attacks, fighter-bombers, ground troops and Special Forces, including the infamous ‘scorched earth’ tactic of attack thereby destroying villages, houses, crops, and livestock as they rampaged through Afghanistan. Over 15,000 Soviet troops were killed from 1979 through 1989. An estimated one million Afghans died as a result of the war during this period.

With the Russians forced to withdraw, the old wounds that had barely healed were brutally reopened as new disturbances arose. Afghanistan saw worse times after 1992. But that’s another story and numerous stories within stories of tragic losses, relentless violence, told and retold in numerous other sites, ghost villages rubbling away by the wayside, burial grounds along slopes, on hilltops and foothills, vast open countryside and red and green flags from the graveyards that disappear and appear in the dust storm.

Photos: Atanu De

Approaching Conflicts

I am in India these days,I have been thinking on conflicts and recounting my days of work in Rajasthan. And on conflicts in India. A far cry from the conflicts in Afghanistan, but silent conflicts.

Conflict is the leitmotif today. I encounter conflicts just about everywhere. I believe that sooner conflicts occur better they are.. And that if conflicts can be addressed, better still managed or resolved, then they truly have that transformative potential. My understanding of conflicts is extremely limited and I attempt at understanding it through examples of the same, ranging across overlapping continua of personal and professional, the visible to the impalpable, the absurd and beyond.

My understanding of what constitutes peace is still more amorphous. But deep down engaging in discussions to be able to lend coherence to our discomforts experienced at consequently many levels, including gloomy isolation, becomes necessary and indeed possible when we come together. There may, however, be an im/explicit conflict in our coming together, with solidarities likened to comfort zones; growing disjointedness between NGOs, new/old social movements, academia etc; disunities between charities, philanthropies and professional social work. Many decried the world social forum as a hoax of sorts, and many still may doubt the raison d’etre of other solidarity initiative. After all isn’t there a conflict between ‘legwork’ and ‘brainwork’? Furthermore, there are pedagogical conflicts. To use the word an nth time, they exist within institutions, organisations, individuals. The mind eddies with these thoughts, and grasping them has never been easy for me.

Being an Natural Resource Management practitioner, as much as I may not choose such a term to describe my proffesion, and having worked on livelihood securities through ecological securities, I sometimes find myself unearthing inherent conflicts and contradictions within such a mandate. My work involved enabling community action to restore their common natural resource property, targets reached were conspicuous in the greenness of the hills; the distinctions between the treated and untreated lands were stark. Such distinctions strengthen the resolve for organistaions to work across contiguous landscapes. But the socio-cultural, political and economic contiguities are as much or even more complex than physical landscapes. Landscapes are compressible within cadastral maps and topo-sheets or even photographs or to the hegemonic eye, but I wonder if even reams and reams and volumes of literature can ever exhaust the lived and shared realities of such contiguities across space and time!

Even natural resource stocks and flows find precious little representation on maps. Massive amounts of lands are concealed in reality. Every village with households that have mortgaged or even lost their lands due to debts. Natural resources are being exploited, some say due to population increase, while others would feel they ought to be historically examined. The present resource regimes have been moulded by years of conflicts resolved or unresolved. The ever depleting translocating underground water reserves has lead to a conflict situation. With bore-wells coming up, you not only have big farmers mining water, but also small and marginal farmers compelled to exercise this option because they have no other choice. There simply isn’t any water in their open wells. No one has clean track records, after all. Such are the conflicts inherent within the ‘tragedy of the commons’.

But coexisting along sides are other conflicts, fundamental conflicts. In a society, which is so caste ridden, we still find remnants of old politics and exploitation. The thakurs that come mounted upon a horse to exact their scores with the indebted, they perforce pick labour from these familities to toil in their homes. With their vertical linkages with the police and bureaucracy, they deploy themselves as indispensable mediators for all conflicts big and small within the village. Any party that dares their hegemony is befittingly treated. A sense of fear and servitude prevail upon scores of rural population. Fear of censure, fear of hunger, fear of uncertainty, fear of freedom..

Violence operates invisibly as well with women being abused at home, but not so invisible in a theater workshop I organized with the children of the village. Domestic spheres as sites of violence are often difficult to set foot in, but children provided glimpses of the same. They enacted how their fathers beat their mothers. Some could not tell their mother’s expression behind the veil. Others were moved by it, but in a very silent way. Later that month in another village, a woman was raped and murdered by her brother-in-law. The village, the police, the bureaucracy, remained silent about it.

Photo: Atanu De

the octagonal mosque

An ordinary mosque in a village in Afghanistan. Made of wattle and daub and some bricks, extremely humble in its scope but extraordinary in its character. It embodies a beautiful conception of the world, fills up the space with its timelessness, and restores hope in turbulent times. The newly built mosque reflects ordinary people expressing their understanding of Islam and aspiring to its ideals. It has eight sides to it characterizing the cardinal number - eight - the number of days it took God to create earth.

The Qur'an says: Say: do you indeed disbelieve in Him who created the earth in two days? He set upon the earth mountains, towering high above it. He blessed it and provided it with sustenance for all those in need alike, in four days. Then, turning to the sky, which was but a cloud of vapour, He said to it and to the earth: "Come forward both, willingly or perforce". "We will come willingly", they answered. In two days, He formed the sky into seven heavens.

Faith, religion, social cohesion, can go together. Islam in Afghanistan, as revealed in many sources of enquiry, has evolved through spaces created by the strength of human reason, tolerance, the human spirit and its triumph. It served in organizing societies around knowledge, and compassion, while also allowing other spaces for people to meet, discuss and celebrate the human spirit. True, there are theocracies and there are fundamentalists, but the spiritual in the religion will allow it to survive these and larger unfavorable trends.

Undeniable indeed then is the basic character of a human settlement woven into one single entity around the community mosque. And for every cluster of villages there is a Friday’s mosque. A mosque is usually built by raising funds in the community. A Mullah or a Maulavi’s salary or the Haq-e-Mulah is also raised through village contributions. A Mullah/Maulvi has to oversee all five prayers in a day and additionally be present for some ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. And besides the Mosque and the Mullah, there are other institutions that have co- existed and that also attempt at organizing people, and enabling peaceful resolution of crises and conflicts - the council of the village elderly headed by the Village Arbob, and other organizations around specific issues. Of course, years of war impacted these institutions, but today we witness a resurgence of many a lost tradition, challenges there are many but seeing a society intimately bound in their prayers and religious beliefs, we then realise the prevalence of an unchanging spiritual character that absorbs the shocks of change and pains of deprivation.

Because when people individually or in groups small and great offer their prayers in a mosque or in the shadow of a mosque, you know that each one is reaching out to his or her innermost peaceful traditions. Like the octagonal mosque that has come traveling through centuries, passing through hearts of the believers and reminding each one that all is for a purpose, all has soul and all will survive, in our eternal prayers.

Photo by Emmanuel

viva les soccer champions from taliqan!

Taliqan is a small provincial town in North Afghanistan and for its smallness the interest that football generates among its youth is huge. I first suspected its popularity from a line of shops in the local bazaar selling football gear. In next to no time I discovered that after buzkashi - the Afghan style polo, football was easily the most popular sport in Afghanistan.

And so we decided to check out the boys in their acts. It was a very impressive sight, energetic young players along different grades practicing football. These guys meet daily, some even twice a day. One group clearly looked most serious with their neon jerseys and total attitude. Their coach had a certain exacting character to him whistling at his boys to line up, raise their arms, run around the field and do the drill. Another group had nothing soccer-like about their attire, but displayed a definite faculty in their dealing with the ball. A third group that we followed closely comprised players in their mid teens. Me, a complete idiot with sports took an immediate liking for the goalkeeper. He could easily be overlooked, in his out of character gear and mannerisms, in loose trousers folded up to his knees, and a looser t-shirt unlike the field players dressed quite appropriately and looking every bit very earnest players. He said being the goalkeeper he gets to enjoy both the game while also getting an occasional shot to fame, so don’t you pity me if you happen to view me languishing along the margins! But he definitely was not languishing; he was booming with good humor and flightiness, humming tacky bollywood melodies, and turning to the spectators and enlivening them with his very special commentary. The match seemed a little cold initially. A goalkeeper then seems quite superfluous, present there more out of convention than real need.

But gradually the game intensifies, we see some clever moves, some good kicks and our ball is traversing new lengths, breadths and occasionally some heights too. And as opponents dribble the ball closer our goalkeeper suddenly turns all possessed and then the unexpected kick which sends the ball driving towards the goal and the goalkeeper lunges sideways at it preventing the goal, and wins himself a round of applause from his team members. And some cheers from us spectators. They played on for some more time and we guys headed home. For a country - its society, polity and economy now loaded with responsibilities of bringing it back on track, this engagement with football is a striking sign of the nation regaining its vitality and health. The country has a national team, and several local teams. Yes, they may not be getting the best coaching or facilities to be internationally competent, and their playing fields occasioned with nasty little bumps and dumps. Our local boys also may not be following all the rules and perhaps don't yet understand the intricacies of the split-end, fullback or rusher, but swift with the ball, regular for the practice, serious in the game, and enjoying the sport they hundred percent are.

(Photo 1: From l to r – Team B/C/D/? Taliqan; Photo 2: From l to r – Our Goalkeeper, the Coach, and the Referee; Photo 3: The Star Team of Taliqan. Photos by Atanu De)

intimately Afghans

In Afghanistan they say – ‘yak roz didi dost, dega roz didi bradar!’ The first day you meet, you are friends. The next day you meet, you are brothers. Afghans aren’t known to practice anything in moderation. Sincerity, passion, intensity - are all essential attributes to an Afghan’s relationships with those he values. At the same time, patience is also a highly regarded virtue. Losing one’s temper is a sign of weakness. To be driven into animosity, hatred, violence can then take place in the most exceptional circumstances. Impenetrable indeed then are the years of conflicts that may have undone or caused these tight bonds, these arms in warm embrace.

Afghans embrace one another, tight, and kissing on both cheeks, and then they may shake hands. I have never shaken hands with as much firmness and warmth, never a cold hand! Afghans place the right hand over their heart after shaking hands implying a ‘straight from the heart’ gesture. They inch closer to you while making a conversation. They exchange a long round of greetings. The other day I was in a room with ten other people and each time someone walked in he would go up to everyone shaking hands or embracing and exchanging greetings – ­Assalam Aleykum! Chataur hastend (How are you?), Sehat chataur hastend (How’s your health), Aulada chataur hasten (How are your children?), Dega chataur hasten (How are you (again)?), Jor hasten (You’re ok?), Khoob hastend (You’re Fine), Bakhair hamaden (You got here safely?)… phew..??? And no they don’t compromise on their intensity when pressed against time, they would simply speed up the ritual. Within two minutes he had struck intimacy with everyone in the room. It’s unbelievable.

There is never a dull moment when Afghans get together. I do not follow Farsi but their conversations are never alienating. The laughter is infectious, the bonhomie is spiritual, you don’t need to know the language to feel one with its rhythms. And the most popular term of endearment can’t be a greater indicator of this intensity – jaan or life! Some Afghan friends sometimes call me Atanu Jaan and I cant help sparkle up to their call. It feels like a privilege to be given some space in their large hearts and if I were an Afghan I wouldn’t secretly cherish it but openly reciprocate!

The little English that some Afghans may speak never makes the content difficult to comprehend, because what they say is always profound, and eye opening! Every Afghan has experienced some or the other form of deprivation, whether at home or away from home, they carry with them the tenderness of a country brought to ruins, and the determination to reshape it. How one event led to another? Each one has a story to tell and each time it gives me goose flesh to see the vivid narration play out in their eyes, faces opening out terrains they have traveled and maps they have followed, and no there isn’t a masculine pride, they are not aggrieved, but it’s the simplicity of the narration that ennobles the listeners. This intensity, magnanimity, complete trust that Afghans have towards things they hold dear has protected them from severe disturbances and complete breakdown. For things most essential to life and its continuity – human labour, reverence for nature, and social bonds have not been lost, and I think I am beginning to understand the reason.

Photo by Emmanuel