Missing Pages………..

Afghanistan’s international policies and internal politics has overshadowed its cultural past and transactions with the rest of the world; its only available picture until very recently was its war-torn, ravaged condition. For most of us our first encounter with an Afghan persona was with the character of Abdur Rahman created by Rabindranath Tagore in Kabuliwala. A pathan fruitseller, comes to India to sell dry-fruits and delicacies to support his family back home, a beautiful relationship ensues between him and little Mini, but as the plot unfurls Rahman gets framed for a theft-charge that he does not commit. In Munshi Premchand’s Godaan, Mehta guises as an Afghan terrorist at Rai Sahab’s function to demand money or threaten to carry off Malti. Sigrun Srivastava’s short-story, Advia enumerates the encounter in Afghanistan between an ambassador and his wife with a local, begging in Pashto for medicine, the horror-struck wife takes him for a terrorist by his sheer “appearance” and uncomprehending speech. Notwithstanding the authorial intention, such portrayals problematize our sense-perceptions creating stereotypes. For instance, as a result many landlords in Delhi refuse to rent out place to Afghanis once their ethnicity-nationality is revealed. In the absence of any first-hand experience -literature, cinema and media mould the way we perceive.

The absence of Afghanis and their culture from common knowledgeable memory has been criticized by many as a strategy of “collective amnesia” or “selective memory” on the part of writers, historians, and governments. The world hears about Afghanistan when news-channels compete to sensationalize the occurring of some major event in the territory. We all are familiar with the face of the “Afghan-girl” Sharbat Gula on the 1985 edition of National Geographic magazine photographed by Steve McCurry – the face with the pair of haunting sea-green eyes became the face of the Afghan Civil Wars between Soviet Union and Mujahideens; the hijack of the Indian Airlines flight at Qandahar; the demolition of the Bamiyan Buddha by Taliban in 2003; the “9/11” attack on the World Trade Centre.

Surprisingly our curriculums never had any stories about or by an Afghani. Neither had we any access to the ones written. So, for most of us our profound encounter with the Afghan world has been through Khaled Hosseini’s first novel, The Kite Runner and later the film popularized the Afghan story greatly. The novel follows the bildungsroman narrative of Amir’s life from childhood through maturity. But the politics of the story result in the many criticisms towards its reception. Hosseini presents a slice of Afghanistan’s life that was not available to us earlier. However, that representation is problematic. This novel/ film and another Indian film, Kabul Express were banned in Afghanistan, specifically in Hazarajat for its mal-representation of the Hazara community and offensively hurting their sentiments; the latter derogatorily abuses the community, while the former salts-their-wounds by reiterating the atrocities inflicted on them through the depiction of certain scenes like the rape of the Shia Hazara boy, Hassan by the Sunni Pashtun boy, Assef. Reading the novel in the New-Orientalist trope, critics like Mathew Thomas Miller state the underlying current as “Islamization of Evil” and “Westernization of Goodness”. A captivating story of Amir’s redemption from his childhood guilt; the successful western expatriate writer leaves his safe, idyllic existence in the U.S. and returns to heroically rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab. The inherent goodness of Baba and evil of Assef is repeatedly reified in some of the most graphic-dramatic scenes of the novel. Amir’s descent into this “Other” world, a veritable “heart of darkness” works as an allegorized neo-colonial imperative of the “White man’s [now western] burden” narrative. As Hosseini’s character Rahim Khan says “the way to be good again”.

1980’s Afghan society was far from what it is today. The degradation has been brought about by the shifting regimes causing ravages in the country. Cinema until recently was considered un-Islamic. The sole Cinema theatre that was built under the Soviet regime after 16 years in Herat, the historical city of art and culture, was demolished by Mujahideens and Taliban. People like Mohammad Amin Wahidi; director-producer-founder of Deedenow Cinema Productions are trying to revive the long-lost culture of his nation, creating opportunities, providing platforms to his countrymen to come out and fearlessly narrate their stories. Likewise, music and dance were banned by Taliban for being sacrilegious and criminal, sentencing to death its practitioners. A new phenomenon called “Afghan Star”, an equivalent of American or Indian Idol, is taking the nation by storm; being more than just a TV show, for singing is risking life. But during Afghan golden age, the cultural exchange between Afghanistan and the world, especially India was immense. One such example is our very own instrument used in Hindustani classical music, the Sarod, a refined version of the Afghan Rubab, a folk instrument which still dominates Afghan music. It was the sarod maestro, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan’s great great great grandfather, Mohammad Hashmi Khan Bangash, who brought the rubab to India about 200 years ago. Today, the celebrated Afghan musician, Farhad Darya, the UNDP National Goodwill Ambassador, whose famous ‘Give me a piece of Peace’ and ‘Beloved Kabul’ were the first songs to be played on national radio at the dawn-break of a new Afghanistan after the fall of Taliban regime in 2001. He says, “For a long time now, the world has a dark and wrong image from Afghanistan. I am trying hard to give the world a deserved image of Afghanistan. The media mostly deals with war news, bloody faces, scandals, ashes, fires. The Afghanistan that I am voicing is unfortunately not a good selling point for the media”.

Afghanistan need undergo the “phoenix-experience”, resurrect and revive its dead culture from its ashes and soar high.