Kabulnama

i

An intimidating call wakes me up at an inopportune moment of a Friday morning. ‘Why is your radio switched off?’ A sharp voice on my cell phone pierces my ear. The abruptness of the verbal blow, that too without any initial introductory remark, catches me unawares and makes me jittery.

‘Probably requires recharging,’ I mumble, in quick defence.

The caller is not satisfied with this. He continues bombarding me with more questions.

‘You have been reminded time and again not to ever switch off your VHF (Very High Frequency) radio, even when it is plugged in for recharging the battery. When have you last got it recharged?’

Somehow, having been able to dodge the first blow, I now feel fully awake underneath the quilt and somewhat capable of uttering lies nonchalantly.

‘I got it recharged last night as well’, I mutter, without a trace of hesitation.

The voice on the other side appears to tone down. ‘It shouldn’t have got drained so fast in that case. You all are supposed to remain in constant touch with the Radio Maintenance Department.’

Suddenly it dawns on me that in such a situation if I politely say ‘Sorry’ once, the matter ends there, and I attempt to do so. It is seven o’clock in the morning.

The harshness of the voice appears to have diminished and the tone sounds gentler this time.

‘Is your evacuation bag ready?’

I get a big jolt of dismay. My heart is already in my mouth. The imaginary consequence of unforeseen devastation instantly engulfs my thought process and channels it towards gloom and despondency. No mirror is required to gauge that my face, if not red, has at least turned purple with anxiety.

The tips of my ears tingle with a rush of heat. Many a worrisome possibility crowd in. Has any bad news arrived from back home? Has one of my colleagues suddenly taken ill? Has anybody met with an accident? Instantly I realise, a mishap in this land often means shaking hands with death. Or, is it that the internal security situation of this country has become so unstable that foreign experts like us are no longer safe here?

As my mind constantly veers from one heart-breaking possibility to another, comes the authoritative instruction from the powerful voice on the other side of the cell phone. ‘Keep your evacuation bag ready. A vehicle is arriving shortly. Don’t make a move out of the guest house till the car arrives.’

‘If the driver of my official vehicle is alerted he can come with the car at once’, I try to say.

My intention is to inform the caller about the existence of my official car and that he should not bother deploying another motorcar and driver for me. The caller seems not at all in a compromising mood. He is rather, a bit annoyed. At least the tone of his voice suggests so.

‘Red Alert has been declared in the city of Kabul since this morning. So, at any moment you may be escorted out of the city. Listen carefully! This is not a security instruction, but an order. Oh yes, you have not yet switched on the radio.’

Indeed the connection snaps this time. How long can such a tiny device withstand such high decibel verbal onslaught! I have no other option but obey the order; hence the VHF radio comes to life. It immediately starts breaking the peace and quiet of the room with a continuous ripple of roaring and crackling. Breaking through the monotonous and noisy sound waves, words like ‘Charlie’, ‘Roger’ or ‘Kilo Delta’ surface rather abruptly.

I lower the volume of the radio but dare not switch it off again. Feeling lonely under the quilt and having been intimidated sufficiently, I now realise the importance of the companionship, unfathomable by any stretch of imagination earlier, of this otherwise irritating stream of noise. Counting every unbearable moment of compulsory waiting time stretching on endlessly till the security vehicle finally reports and the fear and anxiety of an unknown imminent danger has taken firm grip, I soothe my strained nerves by listening to the varying tones of different fascinating rasping sounds from the radio.

Another constant companion is the cell-phone. I am so not well-conversant with the multiple functional options of this device that it always attracts a nervous glance from me! The layout of the keypad of my cell phone is a flat one, individual keys are not separable by touch from the base of the keypad. Hence I use the keypad with great caution lest I end up pressing the wrong key. However, with very little practical experience of handling it, I try to connect some numbers with which I am comparatively more familiar, but in vain. I continue trying to connect to some other numbers. Every attempt is unsuccessful; the tiny device fetches no other response than a faint ‘ding-dong’ and a dark screen. At this point, I find that on the signal indicator sign there is a red cross-mark. It means the jammer is active and hence all cell phone users are blocked from transmitting or receiving any call.

It’s Friday, the weekly holiday. Without any further security related instructions, I come out of bed around eight, wash and prepare to have a look outside. Though the central heating system is in full swing and one feels comfortable under the quilt with a few layers of clothing, one has to be careful nevertheless, while opening the front door. Covering myself with more warm clothes and pulling on my socks and shoes I venture out with anxiety writ large on my face. Before stepping out I check on TV the morning temperature of Kabul. It is (-)29oC.

ii

Aabul is under a canopy of bright golden sunshine right from morning. Looking at the clear, deep blue sky now, it is impossible to imagine the dull and overcast condition that had prevailed over the city for the last few days, created by a somewhat huge grey umbrella of snow and rain. The sky had not been visible at all and the whole city had been beyond recognition due to the continuing blizzard and heavy snowfall for hours together. As a result, the inhabitants of the city are now completely cut off from the rest of the world.

Aircraft operations have come to a standstill. Road transport is in complete disarray. Television, telephone and internet systems have broken down completely. The dish antennae fitted on the tops of TV and telephone towers have been rendered non-functional by several layers of snow.

An amazing thing has happened due to heavy snowfall. The entire city now sports a uni-colour look. No shade other than white is visible anywhere. Pure white does not stand alone however, as it is a combination of seven colours. To what extent this elementary detail of physics holds true, I not only see but realise to the bone.

Light brown or a colour tone one may call ‘muddy’ is the predominant hue everywhere. The outer walls of most of the sun-dried brick houses have a thick outer plaster of clay for insulation. In fact, it is an age-old method of protecting the inhabitants from the vagaries and fury of a harsh winter. The hills which stand guard to the city are also barren. This explains the predominance of a light shade of muddy brown.

This ancient city situated at a height of 6000 feet from the sea level, surrounded by high, barren hills towering up to between 2000 and 3000 feet and Daria-e-Kabul, the famous river of the locality—are all under cover of a sparkling white blanket. At times the vision gets blurred staring at the sprawling sheet of glistening white.

I had no previous experience of looking at so many shades of white all around me. The perfect whiteness of the accumulated snow on the roof-top and cornice lends the look of pure white marble slabs. It seems as if at the time of construction of the houses, the ice got pasted on to the walls. The doors and windows present a different look. The snow resembles the edges of very tiny shreds of clean white paper which, after being dipped in glue, have been hurled at the doors and windows forming a rough white outer layer. The accumulated ice on the road surface has condensed so much that it is now more solid than a concrete surface. It is a blessing in disguise. The potholes and ungainly bumps have disappeared and the road surfaces are flat and smooth. Though walking on these roads is quite troublesome as the surface is slippery, driving is not yet a very difficult proposition because the front wheels of all cars are fitted with an iron chain. The moment a car starts skidding and rolling, the chained wheels automatically create wide ruts in the icy ground for forward movement. The ice on the roads is not pure white; it is rather a darker shade of white, because of the tracks and trails left by moving vehicles and pedestrians.

Both sides of the road offer an amazing sight to viewers. There seems to be a ridge with two to three feet high snow-covered mountain peaks along both sides of the road. It is almost a small replica of the Hindukush mountain range seen from the sky. While removing snow from the roads, municipality personnel heap layer after layer of snow shovelled and scraped from the road on both sides. To save roofs from collapsing and be able to open their main doors, residents of roadside buildings and owners of shops have added another two to three feet layer of snow over it, while cleaning and scraping off the snow blocking their doors with household accessories acting as makeshift shovels. Therefore, as a natural consequence, three to four feet high uneven walls of snow now separate the main road from roadside buildings on both sides.

The whiteness of these three distinct layers of snow differs from one another. The bottom layer is pure white. And the two upper layers, though apparently white, lack the fresh and glowing marble-white tones which expensive bath soaps promise to lend to the skin.

Reflected golden sunshine from the icy grounds has somewhat brightened up the day but the temperature has not risen at all. Rather, the chill in the morning air is quite a sharp one. It is nice to gaze at the sparkling ice accumulated all around in different shapes and colours but hardly a soothing exercise for the eyes, given the harsh mirror-like reflection of sunlight from the icy surface. The frozen snow appears crystal clear in places, while it resembles white balls of cotton elsewhere. But the greater part of the visible landscape resembles a pure white marble floor.

Shutters have been lifted with the weather clearing up and the place is now buzzing with shoppers and shopkeepers. Mechanics are already on the risky job of cleaning stagnated snow from TV and telephone antennas for restoring normalcy. Besides bulldozers, people from the airport authority, the army and the municipal authorities have been desperately working with spades and shovels to remove the snow.

iii

I can hear the echoing noise produced by high speed hooter-wailing vehicles. The road is in full view from my rooftop. At other times of the year, there is a clear, sweeping view of the entire mountain range as well—brown and barren. Wiping dust from my glasses, I gaze at the snow-covered mountain peaks in the distant horizon. I have enjoyed this beautiful scene on several earlier occasions. At this very moment, when the mind is restless, I cling on to the view in a bid to rescue myself from the clutches of fear but discover that trying to enjoy the beauty of nature in my current state of mind is a rather painful exercise. Every passing moment is ripe with the possibility of approaching danger.

Military jeeps, Land Cruisers and other cars generally not used by the common public whiz past, even though their front wheels are chained, to lend a better grip on the icy road. Convoys of battle-ready armoured vehicles crawl by pompously. A bunch of Repeaters speed past our guest house at frequent intervals. What are Repeaters, one may ask? When a particular motorcade comprising ten to twenty cars of the same shape, size, colour and even bearing the same number plate is seen moving, it is understood that an important personality is passing by. Among these, identifying a VIP-occupied vehicle is difficult. These cars are known as Repeaters.

Engrossed in watching the flow of moving bulletproof vehicles on the road, I light a cigarette. The nicotine instantly triggers my alertness. I find the vehicles moving only in one direction. In all probability, some untoward incident has occured in the direction from which the cars are coming. Hence, they are backtracking to safety from the troubled spot or else, rushing towards danger to confront it head on! I breathe a sigh of relief, getting rid of the mess in my mind. If it were a personal mishap, so many cars together would not rush ahead on the road. Of course, I should have figured it out from the uninterrupted radio noise conveying security related information from time to time. How foolish of me! At times of imminent grave danger, one loses common sense.

It is not yet my turn. Am I to be the last person evacuated because I just happen to stay at a place closest to the headquarters of the security-monitoring authority? Do they still remember my existence? Or, is it a penalty imposed on me for keeping the radio shut? Therefore, no instruction for me comes from that raucous voice.

Being completely absorbed in the activities on the ground, the overhead activities have remained unnoticed. Or perhaps, being completely immersed in the thought of the arrival of the expected car, I have been unmindful of a significant development in the sky. For a moment I lift my eyes and find some army helicopters hovering overhead to keep a close vigil on ground activities. A few fighter planes are also engaged in a low flying mission, lending coverage support.

Airborne objects one may lose sight of, but how could I miss the sound of roaring engines! Fixed and rotary-winged aircrafts of different specifications continue to fly at a very low altitude, or rather as I perceive, enjoy sweeping the dust off the ground. I am so used to this that I generally don’t pay much attention. But today’s ‘ground reality’ is strikingly different.

The amplified sound of conversation in coded language from the VHF radio is audible, but continues without a hint of any instruction