On the way to university this morning, I had his album on and a song called “golo khar” (flower and the thorn) started to play. I was taken by his song and I felt some tears in my eyes. I will post the lyrics another time since this computer does not have a Farsi/Persian keyboard.

It’s the story of a flower that looks down upon the thorn bush next to her and talks low of the thorn. One day the flower wakes up noticing that the thorn is gone. Later on, in the absence of the thorn which acted as a repellant so people would not pick up the flower, somebody picks the flower and she faces death.

I remember Sa’di has the same sort of a story and there was another poem that we studied in middle school. This song brought all those memories and then I found it very similar to the current state of Afghan state. The intellectuals that started the uprising against the communists first played a key role but then once the opposition got momentum, these intellectuals were assassinated or were forced to leave.

In the absence of the intellectuals, the status of the Mujahideen whom were praised for their struggle against the world communist superpower is similar to what the flower in the song received. They became fools and the admiration that they received made them think that they can survive by their own. They thought that it should be the Mujs who should get the attention and they no longer needed or should be reliant on the intellectuals whom actually started the whole opposition movement.

I wish the Mujahideen fighters had been thought the concept of tolerance. They should have accepted that their struggle is fragile and they needed the academicians and bureaucrats whom they assassinated or sent to exile.

Alas it’s too late.

Here is the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiF7e6wATe0

We called each other midday at Thursday, agreed on a meeting point which was normally at our store. When we didn’t have cars, we biked and on the way we bought bread, egg, kabob and fruits. We never told our families where the party would be, because we didn’t want our fun to be extra work for the women.

This didn’t happen in post Taliban era. The ritual actually started during the Taliban era. When the Titanic movie came out, we smuggled a VHS player, charged a few car batteries (we didn’t have city electricity so we had to use car batteries and converter), and the main thing the VHS! We then had to cover all the windows so the change in the hue of light because of TV screen is not visible from outside the house.

Taliban tried to limit us and the more we “broke” those rules, the more fun it was. Such was life and so much fun it was.

Till my next blog,

Ciao!