The Taliban destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha statues. , Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto
wI was exchanging notes on our time in Afghanistan with a new elderly acquaintance of mine and much older than me. He lived in Kabul for several years in the first decade of this century. I was there almost 50 years ago – from 1958 to 1961. He mentioned the visit of the Buddhas of Bamiyan since destroyed by the Taliban. Recalling my trip to Bamiyan, I asked, “Did you enjoy the drive?” He said that he had come from Kabul. During my time in Afghanistan, Bamiyan, a hundred miles from Kabul, was accessible only by narrow, dusty roads. A friend of mine took me there in a Land Rover jeep. We left early on a summer morning and reached Bamiyan by evening.
Although it was exhausting, the journey stayed in my mind as much, if not more, than the Buddhas themselves. At least some of the black-and-white photos I took along the way testify to this: camel caravans, striking Afghan faces, loading donkeys driven by a man, an old shrunken woman 10 or 12 on a camel’s back Led by the boy of the year … the images are still vivid.
At a bend in the road, we saw a caravan of camels coming, and my friend pulled aside to let it pass. They called it Camelcade à la Cavalcade! The camel, with its head held high, nose in the air, disdainful of its surroundings and chewing nonstop with a wide sweep of its jaws, is the embodiment of meditative detachment!
We had heard of the ‘Kuchis’, a nomadic tribe that knew no boundaries, and wondered if the caravan, with goats and sheep, belonged to them.
We stopped under a wayside tree for a beer and sandwich lunch. Not a soul was to be seen in the deserted forest all around, only brown barren hills on either side with little or no vegetation. It was horrifying to say the least. As we got back in the jeep, three boys aged between 10 and 12 came out of nowhere and rushed to pick up the discarded beer cans. We knew they’d be turned into tea mugs with tin handles.
It was still daylight when we checked into our hotel, on a rather steep hill, half a kilometer from the cliff-top. From its front yard, you had a bird’s eye view of the rock. Even with its wide angle lens, my camera could not get a complete picture of the rock, which contained several standing Buddhas.
After an overnight stay at the hotel we drive another 40 miles or so on a dangerous dusty road to see the complex of blue lakes of Band-e-Amir, at a height of over 10,000 feet, called Hajarjat But went on. The interconnected lakes were indeed a memorable sight. We did not see any human settlement on the way. At one of the lakes we heard a voice, and saw a man, an Afghan, at the door of a small hut on the shore. He was talking on the phone! Only then our eyes fell on the phone line and the pole.
According to what I heard from my acquaintance, now you can visit the tourist places of Afghanistan. You can fly from Kabul to Bamiyan in less than an hour. For me, half the fun, or maybe all the fun, was getting to Bamiyan and back by road, not taking in views of the amazing Buddha ruins but snapshots of life lived along the way. How can I forget the sight of an old woman leading a 10 or 12 year old boy on the back of a camel?
pmwarrier9@gmail.com