Freedom inside a garden
What most of us take for granted – talk, walk, dress as we please, and be ourselves – is a huge battle in many cultures. This was forcefully driven home to me during a trip to Kabul in April, 2005. The Taliban had been defeated three years earlier in the US-led invasion on Afghanistan. My desperate attempts to talk to some of the burqa-clad women on Kabul’s streets always failed. The excuse by the completely covered figures: We don’t speak English or ‘Hindustani’.
She asked women what they wanted; the older ones wanted a professional counseling centre, “where they could talk freely about domestic violence and nightmares associated with the violent and bloody times they have survived”. Younger women wanted a gym, echoing the chilling comment by a girls’ schoolteacher who sought a gym from French benefactors: “During the Taliban era we had forgotten we had a body.” 14-year-old Naziya, happy to return home after living as a refugee in Pakistan during Taliban times, clung to my arm. She loved Bollywood films and spoke some Hindi and introduced me to her mother and other women. Unveiled, laughing, gossiping and teasing each other on romancing Bollywood stars; some even wanted telephone numbers of Bollywood glam boys like Shah Rukh Khan and John Abraham! But soon there were demands for contraception pills; in quest for sons many husbands forced their wives through repeated pregnancies, sometimes even ten! “Can you imagine what it does to our bodies,” asked one. But others wanted the opposite: “pills to get babies”; or else their husbands would get another wife. After long years they had found their voice. Said Shaima, “You can’t imagine the horrid times we've gone through. It wasn’t only the Taliban who tortured women; our slow death began with the Mujahideen. The tribal chieftains and their men tortured and raped women. I’ve been beaten, couldn’t’ go out to shop and my daughters couldn’t go to school.” The Taliban are detested the most. Savages, jahil (illiterate), animals, tormentors, are some of the adjectives used to describe the Taliban. But as dusk approached, the women withdrew into speechless, formless, shadowy figures of blue. Back to a world dictated by men. Rasheeda Bhagat
Someone suggested I visit on a Friday the Baghe Zanana (Garden for Women), the only place where women threw off their veils, relaxed, gossiped and picnicked with their children. In short, a place where the men did not lay down a “behaviour code” for them.
Built by a king in early 20th century, till 25 years ago, it thrived as a popular cultural spot with music concerts for women. The Taliban era put an end to this, the garden’s thick green fruit and flowering trees were hacked for fuel by locals and it became a garbage dump, said 22-year-old Nilab Sadat, in charge of the garden’s reconstruction.
Associate Editor
The Hindu Business Line
