OSAMA – Life of the people of Afghanistan

Half an hour back, the power went off and so I started with my normal routine, which I normally do at such times…. Chit-chatting with my friend Gaurav Verma… We talk about a lot of stuff from politics to movies, from our university going to dogs to the latest in fashion or cinema…. and so on and so forth…. Incidentally, the topic of discussion came on Taliban and we were discussing about how horrendous the Taliban regime had been on the people of Afghanistan, esp the women…

Most of u would be having an idea of what had occurred in Afghanistan before the US-UK attack… Life was actually terrible there…. Maybe terrible is also a very small word to describe the calamity… but one can easily say that the life of people was even worse than dogs, after seeing a movie called OSAMA…

Its not about Bin-laden, but on the atrocities which the talibanese inflicted on the people of Afghanistan. The movie goes something like this:

In the first scene, the director has shown that the women in Afghanistan are taking mass protests against the Taliban rule… but their procession is brought to an abrupt halt with the Talibanese fighters attacking these helpless women and later jailing them in cells… Very few of them are able to save their lives and flee away…..

In the next scene, a life of a very poor and common household in Afghanistan is shown, where the man of the house had been inducted into the Taliban army to fight in Pakistan and is probably dead and since, women are not allowed to work, the 3 people (a small girl, her mother and her grandmother) are starving…. The mother works in a small hospital, but that too is being shut down since the people have no money to pay… She has no means, whatsoever, to earn her bread.

The condition of the people is bad, so bad that probably death would be a more feasible option than life…. yet they’re somehow managing their lives among fear, terror and hunger. So peculiar are the taliban’s laws that people are not allowed to make any merry… This can be understood from the scene that is shown…. they cater to a house where a marriage is taking place (the bride has never met the groom but the marriage would take place with his photo frame!!) Later they hear a knock and understand that the talibans have come…. So they quickly hide everything and wipe out all traces of joy and happiness and instead cover themselves with burkahs and fake to be sulking over their dead ones!! This shows that the ruthless talibanese were even against the celebration of any joy amongst the people….

The mother later decides to cut her daughter’s hair, so that she would look like a boy and encourages her not to fear and be bold, otherwise all of them would starve to death. Later she takes her to an acquaintance where the girl could work…. For the initial few days, they are able to get their bread, still living among the terror that if the Talibanese discover that, they would ‘kill’ them……

But somehow, the good days are always short-lived. The talibanese begin to induct all young boys to be trained into fighters and so the girl also has to go to the training camp… However, her identity is soon revealed and she is condemned to die… They sentence her to be killed. But then the mullah (or the kazi) comes up to the chief and suggests that the girl be married to him!! A 10-11 years old girl be married to a 60-65 year old man….. and the chief proclaims, that “By the justice of Allah! The girl is forgiven and married to the old kazi”

Later, the kazi brings the girl to her house, where he introduces her to his other wives.. As the readers can now guess, what happens later in this story… the fun, the age, the innocence of a tiny girl being ruined by an old man….. The girl who doesn’t know anything about this world…. is made to suffer for the rest of her life by an old kazi… She is made to be locked in her house where she is condemned to suffer for the rest of her life.

Her dreams are all trampled…. and mercilessly killed….

Such is the pathetic condition of the women in Afghanistan…. They had to survive a climate of hostility and face all odds…. death and destruction… even though they are fully qualified to earn their own bread….. they had to suffer at the hands of meaningless, orthodox talibanese fundamentals….. I know that the US-UK attack on Afghanistan was not legitimate…. But somewhere, in my heart of hearts I feel that it was for good, because it atleast helped to liberate these terror-stricken people…..

May God shower peace on all of us !!