Way to Kabul
This work of non-fiction is Sayed's memoir of his journey back to Afghanistan during the oppressive rule of the Taliban. Living in Pakistan as refugees, Sayed is a humble family man working for the UN as a driver and earning good income compared to others. Still, what he witnesses on a daily basis, is horrific as people struggle to survive in a country that has lost itself to constant brutality. On his search to find his parents he luckily escapes jail for not having the correct ID and a long enough beard. This is the story of a man struggling to come to terms with the horrors happening in the land of his birth. This is a challenging and thought-provoking read that tells it like it is and could disturb some readers. The various settings and movements from one to the other maintain the pace of the story and the author captures the true-life situations of good people living in constant fear. This is a work of considerable scope that is a very worthwhile eye-opening read from start to finish.
Read sample of my stories published in this book
Refugee Stories
Sayed's Story
1979, Wardak Afghanistan
Life became miserable after the war started. I was quite young at that time when a horrific incident happened in which three of my very close friends and classmates were killed during the first year of the Russian invasion. Together, we had tried to hide from the Russians when they came into our province with more than 300 tanks and thousands of soldiers. Their aim was to get rid of the resisting Mujahidin who were in control of the province. We all tried to escape and hide in the mountains but unfortunately we were surrounded and captured. The soldiers began to interrogate us – why were we there and what were we doing? I was the youngest of the group of five. The first person the soldiers separated from the rest was me, but the others were 18-22 years of age including twins.
They then asked everyone to show their IDs. One of the twin brothers who didn’t show his ID was actually the lucky one. When they asked him how old he was, he told them that he was 15. But he was actually a day older than his brother and he had a stronger body but his lie worked that time. The soldiers sent him to stand beside me, and later we were freed. They told us to go back home. The soldiers, however, took the other four unfortunate boys with them to show to their commander, before deciding what to do with them.
We moved back down towards home with so many risks. We could easily have been targeted by solders there, because on the other side of the mountain heavy fighting had started, and we could hear the sounds of heavy gunfire from tanks. Coming down the mountain, we were the only people in civilian dress – nearly everyone had either escaped before the Russians arrived or were in hiding for fear of being shot, arrested or even killed for no reason. We managed to get down without any incident and got back home safely, but the next morning my youngest sister came to my room while I was still asleep. She slapped me with force and told me that all three of my friends had been killed by the Russians.
“Oh my God!!” I said.
I ran towards the village without stopping to put on my shoes. Breathless, I saw my friend’s mother sitting on her door step, crying and beating herself. Other women from the village sat around her trying to calm her to no avail.
Her young son had been brutally shot and killed and his face had been torn apart with sharp knives. He had done nothing wrong! When his mother saw me, she ran towards me crying out loud. She took my hand and told me to come with her, to show me my friend, to show me what these senseless, evil animals had done to her young son – an innocent child.
As a widow she had given up her life for them and brought them up alone. But now they had murdered her son, extinguished his light, left her a mother without her child. She took me to his body, lying on a bed inside their small house, and took the sheet off from his face. Oh My God, I saw the young innocent boy’s face divided in two – like an open book – cut down the middle. I could see his brains. I fainted and nearly fell down but someone held me tight and asked for water, and I was led outside.
From that day everything had changed because soon after that cleanup by the Russians, the opposite side, who called them Mujahidin, turned again on the government and started burning schools, government buildings, and destroying bridges on the main highways. Our school was the very first in that province that was burnt down by them and I was forced to stay home. Also when the government found that my dad had joined the opposition groups in Pakistan they intended to arrest me to get to my father, by keeping me as a hostage or prisoner. I was informed by one of my father’s friends who advised me to take care of myself.
One Wedding and One funeral
A true story Journey to Afghanistan in 2007
After a week of catching-up, we started to gather-up things in preparation for the upcoming nuptials. The date was set for the wedding and we booked a restaurant in the northern part of the city.Two nights before the wedding, a traditional Afghan (Shabe Khina) celebration was held. The groom’s family held a party which only very close relative attended.Henna (a natural red dye) was tattooed onto the hands of the bride and her guests. The throng of happy voices, loud music and dancing could be heard throughout the street. This was one of the happiest nights of my life. My daughter’s future was set! Not only was my child betrothed to be married, but recently she had also made me very proud when she completed her discipline of study and had walked onto the dais to graduate. The next day we worked tirelessly in preparation for the wedding. When I went to bed that night, my ability to fall asleep was disturbed by the hot weather and noisy mosquitoes.Sometime later I did fall into a deep sleep, only to be woken by a shaking motion.Brother, please wake-up because we are going somewhere and we are in a hurry – so please be quick!I knew I must have been woken up for a good reason. As I gained my senses, I asked my sister to tell me what had happened.My sister explained to me, our brother Haji Nadir Shah had been shot, but was alive. Someone had used a ladder and entered at the back of the house, and shot him in the stomach while he was asleep alongside his young sons. He was haemorrhaging blood and no emergency services were available to transport him to a hospital. Only God knew whether he would survive or not.Repeating her words, my sister conveyed to me, our cousin Karim and a friend were driving Haji Nadir Shah in the back of a station-wagon to a rendezvous, where we would meet them. I washed my face, ran down the stairs to join my sister and her husband in a waiting car before speeding off toward the Kabul highway that links Wardak, Kandahar and Herat.We planned to meet them near the city because it was not safe for them to go any further. We would transfer Haji Nadir Shah from the station-wagon into our car and take him to a hospital specialising only in treating people who have been wounded in a shooting or a bombing.With continual bleeding from bullets lodged in his stomach, and no easy access to a hospital or a doctor, we prayed to Allah for nothing dire to happen to him.
Haji Nadir Shah, a husband and father of seven children aged between one and thirteen had been shot in his bed at home in Wardak in the middle of the night, by some evil minded and heartless people. An innocent victim! A peaceful man, my brother worked day and night for his family and had never been involved in any under-handed activities using weapons.My brother-in-law, a military general was also prepared to help. He authorised guards at subsequent check-posts not to stop our car for searching, because our vehicle was being used to transport a seriously injured person to hospital. On our way to the city we passed many check-posts and finally arrived at a point we could go no further - or we too could lose our lives!We stopped on the side of the road and waited for the station-wagon to arrive and meet us. After an hour or so, we finally saw the headlights of a car travelling very fast towards us. The car stopped short of us on the roadside and we all ran to the station-wagon. Without stopping to talk we transferred Haji Nadir Shah into our waiting car.My sister and I comforted him. He asked us whether he was going to die. At the same time, both of us exclaimed,’ God will look after you’ and told him not to worry because he would be in hospital very soon.