Afghanistan was a different place in 1960s and early 1970s, when I worked there. It was a progressive place, far different than the world has seen in the last 40 years.
One day, I had a visit from a French Professor. He told me that he was writing a book on wine making in the Middle East. I gave him a tour of our winery, explaining that we had the latest equipment to make wine. Later he came to my office and interviewed me over a glass of wine. He told me that Kabul wine was very popular and exported to the Far East almost four hundred years ago. He was going to visit several other countries on the old Caravan route to compile his book. He promised to send me a copy, but we left Afghanistan before his book was published.
I was known to the entire diplomatic corps by virtue of being in the wine business. In addition, there was a large contingent of United Nations working in Afghanistan. When the cold war was at its highest, Afghanistan was in the Russian camp. However, Afghanistan demonstrated superb diplomacy by wooing America to make a super highway from the Iranian Border, Herat to the Pakistani border at Torkhum via Kabul, while the Russians built the highway from Kabul to the Oxus River via the Salang Pass. Russia always wanted to get to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. Every country had their best diplomats posted in Kabul.
Kabul in 1950s or 1960s
Photo: Public Domain/Wikipedia
I also got to know the entire USAID expatriate staff right from the Director down, and became a member of the Duplicate Bridge Club. I still have a coupon book as a souvenir, which we would use to buy food and drinks at the club. It was a welcome place to immerse back into Americana after having spent 10 years living and working with the Americans in Pakistan.
An avid traveler, I traveled extensively throughout Afghanistan. Its several varieties of grapes and melons are world famous and were the favorite of Babur, founder of the Mugul dynasty of India. He wrote with relish in his travelogue, ‘Tuzk-i-Baburi’. Besides grapes and melons, Afghanistan is known for its wild pistachio groves, delicious apricots and pomegranates.
There are a number of excellent travel books: After you Marco Polo by Jean Bovary Shore”, “Kingdom of Kabul” by Mountsturart Elphinston, and “Mission to Bokhara” by Sir Alexander Burns.
Also, there are a couple of Hollywood movies on Afghanistan: “Caravan” based on a novel by James Michener, played by Anthony Quinn posing as Chief of a Koochi (nomadic) tribe that traverse Afghanistan from South to North during change of the seasons, to find grazing ground for their cattle and sheep. It is an epic love story – an American woman doing engineering research in South Western Afghanistan, traveling with the Koochi caravan, and falling in love with the Chief (Anthony Quinn).
Another great movie is “Horsemen” played by Omar Sharif, an epic Afghan love story with fantastic scenes of the Afghan national pastime “Buzkashi” – to snatch a carcass of a calf from the ground on a galloping horse and take it to the opposite end with dozens by horses converging at one place, and riders whipping each other mercilessly to take hold of the carcass, displaying horsemanship at it best. Buskashi is an offshoot of the old Mongolian sport, a predecessor of modern horse polo. One day while sitting at the PIA office, next to Kabul Hotel, I saw a group of Kabul University students demonstrating outside. I made a comment, that whenever university students demonstrate, it always leads to trouble and that a coup could take place in Afghanistan in 3-5 years. My friend said no way, as the King was installed on the Kabul thrown for the last 38 years; was a Pakhtoon, and that his son-in-law was the Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Army. I personally knew some of the members of the royal family except the king himself.
King Zahir Shah, Image Credit: Public Domain/Wikipedia
Within a short time (1973) in one moonlit night in the summer, I heard gunfire. Our house was located next to General Khan Mohammad, Commander of the Royal Palace Guards. There was a paramilitary battalion on a hillock not far from our house. I saw tracer bullets going by our bedroom windows and I woke up my wife. Our children were in the next bedroom with the Nanny, and also, we had guests from Pakistan. I woke every one up and moved downstairs. We had no basement but had servant quarters at the back.
In the morning I woke up as usual, had breakfast and our servant opened the garage. When I backed out, I saw about 6-7 dead bodies lying on the street between our and the general’s house. Still it did not register, and I proceeded to work. When I came to the first intersection, not too far from our place, I saw a military tank, and immediately turned on my car radio on and heard an announcement from Sardar Daud Khan, the first cousin of King Zahir Shah, announcing that the king had been overthrown in a coup d’état. Midnight was the zero hour.
Things would never be the same again.
This piece is an excerpt from Fida Shah’s planned book My Life Story – Tracing Footsteps of My Long Journey – Life at Kabul, Afghanistan. Some parts in this piece were previously published in Views and News.
