Afghanistan I saw in June/July 1977 (Third part)

 

Ghazni was fascinating for me for another reason too; I had always heard from my grand parents that we are Pathans of Mohmand tribe. Although Mohmand tribe is now settled north of Khyber Pass when our ancestors came to India, the Mohmands were settled somewhere between Kabul and Ghazni. It was in the days of Bahlol Lodhi over 400 years back and our family had their shajra with them that they lost it in the mayhem of 1947. Had Hoshyar Khan sahib (my ancestor) decided not to migrate to India I might have been a local here, interesting J

 

Ghazni was a small city with unpaved roads and a long bazaar. While looking for a hotel in the bazaar I saw an old Sikh goldsmith proudly wearing his turban. I tried to talk to him in Punjabi that I had recently started learning, he understood but couldn’t speak fluently. However he helped me find a cheap hotel and I settled down.

 

After yet another meal consisting of beef I had to visit my hero, the great Mahmood who humbled India 17 times. There was a small local bus stand where strange looking Russian pickup trucks were going to the mazar 10 kms away. I settled on its deck and gradually it started filling. The dress and demeanor around made me feel that all the passengers were poor, very poor. The truck was pretty high; probably a 4x4 and suddenly someone threw a big wooden crutch on the steel floor creating loud sound. I got attentive and saw a man with one leg in his late twenties pulling himself up holding a beautiful little girl in his other arm. A fully covered young women having part of chaddar on her face followed him and they settled down on the deck near me. The little girl was around 3 years old and too close to her dad. She looked a bit weak but was active and noticed me without beard wearing western dress, something strange in that culture. I noticed the wrist of this man which was many times the size of mine and built naturally with no gym involved. He must have worked really hard all his life. At 18 years of age someone in his twenties looks old and I considered him old too.

 

 

After initial social niceties he informed me in his Pashto that his daughter had been sick and he was going to a famous pir near the mazar of Mahmood to get his prayers for his daughter’s health. He was confident that the young lady would be treated by these prayers. Upon inquiring if he had taken patient to the doctor he told that he trusted the pir more. I found out that like doctors the pirs also specialize in different specialities and this was a Pediatrician Pir.

 

His wife and daughter were also interested in the stranger that I was, and he many times told them about me. I remember he once told her that I was a Muslim.

 

At the time of payment of fare he forcefully stopped me and took out a polythene bag which was folded manifold. After repeatedly unfolding the bag he took out money and paid his family’s and my fare. I felt really bad as he didn’t have much but a very big heart, a typical Afghan.

 

Finally the truck started and after a short but very bumpy ride we reached the mazar.

 

It was a big structure but nothing fancy, said my fateha and prayed for him. I thought of the gates of Somnath that he had taken to Ghazni that were brought back after the punitive campaign of the British laying much of Afghanistan to waste punishing them for winning the First Afghan War. Tens of thousands of Afghans civilians were butchered and cities laid to waste. Later research confirmed that bringing back the gates of Somnath was yet another British trick to create divide between Hindus and Muslims. These were newly made gates only to get the favor of Hindus at the cost of communal harmony. It explains how the Indian society was intentionally and methodically destroyed by the most cunning nation to ever step on this earth.

 

The friendly passengers were very kind to me trying to do me a favor took me to the Pir just next to the mazar. The Pir was obese, something rare in Afghanistan, wearing a long beard and displaying a kind of aura and arrogance. He was sitting on a raised platform next to a window opening in corridor while the rest of the packed room was sitting on the carpeted floor. Patients or mureeds would sit across the window and he would pray loudly and then breathe out on their face. After all this hard work he would accept some kind of gift given subtly in his palm and the next one would come.

 

I was given special treatment by the Pir as I was a foreigner and he graciously shared some fruit with me. I found eating alone with many in the room strange and uncomfortable. I still can’t eat without offering others. I offered fruit to others and the Pir seeing my discomfort himself offered everyone that they politely declined.

 

In the room there were some prosperous looking people sitting at a prominent place. They spoke Urdu well and told me that they had shops in the Landa Bazaar of Lahore. Landa is a distortion of the word London. Here during the extreme destitute of British occupation used clothes imported from London were sold cheap. Even in those days Landa bazaar was dominated by Afghans who could be undistinguishable from the local Pathans.

 

These traders and Pir educated me that the great Lahori saint Hazrat Data Gunj Buksh was from Ghazni and he came to Lahore with Mahmood as his cavalryman. Later he settled outside Lahore preaching Islam and humanity converting many with his humane and egalitarian creed. I was further educated that the shrine of his father was in Ghazni.

 

It was hot in the sun and wheat crop had turned golden. I had to take public transport to the shrine and then walk much to reach there. I offered fateha and returned to the city. My hotel was a very simple one on the upper story of a building in the main bazaar.

 

After a bit of rest I went for a walk having many qahwas on the way making new friends. Everywhere I was declared a guest and served free or someone else paid for my tea by less than affording but very dignified people. Here I made a few friends my age and they invited me to attend a local wedding and I agreed.

 

Late evening we went to that wedding. It was probably the son of an affluent person and was heavily attended. I saw many ladies wearing the typical heavy red frocks and big chaddars covering themselves well. It was a joyous event and although the genders were segregated I could hear the loud music and women celebrating although could hardly understand their chants.

 

Dinner had meat and meat, and then some more meat sparsely interspersed with thick Afghani rotis and some rice. After all that gluttony there was my favorite, the Afghani qahwa. The function must have lasted longer but I left after qahwa when the typical smell of cannabis started spreading and I went to hotel as had to go to Kandahar next day.

Next morning I walked to the highway where busses plying the Kabul/Kandahar route stopped to drop and pick passengers. After a few minutes a bus stopped and I got in. The passenger dropping at Ghazni must have been an important one because his seat was at the front on the other side off the driver with a great view and ample leg space, something I need at my height. The bus had the same stench which I got used to even earlier this time.

 

 

Kandahar was 350kms from Ghazni and it was all desert with hardly any signs of life or greenery. Suddenly we came across a very old rounded building with a few trees. It was a typical sarai of older times built close to a small source of fresh water sustaining life and human activities.

 

It came out that it was a namaz stop and namaz was the most important and sensitive aspect of Islam for the Afghans. Probably they weren’t very well aware of the extra importance Islam imparts on human rights, education, soft heartedness and manners unlike the earlier religions focusing on rituals. Apparently Afghan understanding of Islam hasn’t changed much since then.

 

While most passengers were busy in wazoo ablution I went inside the intriguing structure. Inside the little sarai there was kind of a little pond in the centre and around it were pine needles scattered on the floor making it a sitting and eating place. It must be cozy in winters. I felt like I had gone back centuries in a time machine and might meet historical characters like Ghaznavi, Ghauri, Babur etc at any corner. There was hardly anyone as all the locals were praying and it was me and a few Europeans who sat here and ordered tea, I mean qahwa off course.

 

Soon the bus started again and the same boring, rather scary scenery started. The road was as good made of concrete but as long, as straight and as barren too. The scene got too monotonous and I nearly dosed of when suddenly I saw something strange. In this hot desolate part of the world, two huge men were sitting on small little Honda cub and traveling long distances. I was further flabbergasted at Japanese quality and reliability. I still feel so indebted to the Japanese showing the world that it was not whiteness of skin that made Europe dominate the world and imparting the lesson that any race that works hard and methodically can progress. Japanese were the first non-Europeans to beat the west in its own game and leave it far behind.

 

I was dozing off and on crossing the unending desert with rare interruptions of oasis having trees reached Kandahar.

 

I had heard a lot about Kandahar, the capital of Durrani dynasty, known for its pomegranates with medicinal qualities and friendly people. Later during Mullah Omar’s time it was not the capital city but the place where he resided with final authority over nearly everything.

 

Kandahar was even hotter, a bit like Multan or Sukkur in Pakistan. There was lots of dust and noise.  It had the familiar Pakistani smoke emitting rickshaws but no attractive red pomegranates in sight. Kandahar was disappointing.

 

I got a room in a hotel in the central square of the city with big glass windows making it close to intolerable. I had read different touristic pamphlets that mentioned different graves or tombs which didn’t interest me much. One of the places of interest it mentioned were some ancient ruins of a prehistoric city a bit west of the city and I went there on a rickshaw. On the way back I got a lift from local residents coming back from their farms in a brand new Mercedes, something not very common in Pakistan. They were very fine, educated and hospitable despite being unable to speak English or Urdu. My very weak pushto, which by now had improved a bit, helped us communicate as my hosts were much interested in the conditions of Pakistan. They as usual offered qahwa and took me to their office in the city. Before qahwa I was served fabulous Afghani food which had a different taste from Kabul or Ghazni. Those were probably pre AC days as despite extreme heat we didn’t see any.

Burqa or chaddar clad women were visible in the bazars along with few European girls temporarily stopping on their way to Kabul. Kandahar didn’t seem to be popular with the westerners.

 

Kabul was so different from Jalalabad, Ghazni or Kandahar. There were two different worlds living side by side in the same little country, pretty peacefully; apparently.

 

After a bit of walk around the small city the heat somewhat lessened and I felt that I might be able to sleep and I went to my hotel.