The Hindu Business Line : Where women hang out

Friday is when the women of Kabul assemble at the Baghe Zanana or Women's Garden, the only place where they can meet, throw off their veils, relax, gossip and have a picnic with their children... only boys below 12 are permitted here.

Young Naziya's day out at the 'Baghe Zanana'.

At the Baghe Zanana (Women's Garden) in Kabul, you finally say goodbye to your frustration at the inability to talk with ordinary Afghan women... the kind of casual conversations you can pick up with the odd woman on the street anywhere in the world. An attempt to talk to any woman — most of them burqa clad — is met with the usual "I can't speak English or Hindustani", before the woman hastens her pace to disappear from the scene. As for photographing women, that is totally a taboo in Kabul or outside. Requests for photographing women, including those with burqas, is met with a firm and incredulous `No', indicating that even though more than three years have passed since the ouster of the Taliban regime, Afghan women are still apprehensive about their return. Add to this fear traditional Muslim societal norms, and you can gauge the women's reluctance at being photographed.

Even at the Baghe Zanana, which is being revived and reconstructed after years of neglect, destruction and felling of trees for fuel by a desperate population facing dire times on the economic front during the Taliban era, strangers are initially eyed with curiosity, if not with suspicion. It's a Friday, the weekly holiday in Afghanistan, and the day when the women of Kabul assemble at this only place where they can meet, throw off their veils, relax, gossip and have a picnic with their children... only boys below 12 are permitted here.

The history of this garden is a bit hazy, as pointed out by its Director, 22-year-old Nilab Sadat, who had to brave much opposition from family and friends to lead the team of 70-odd people — almost all men — engaged in the task of reconstructing this garden two years ago. "Nobody knows how old it really is; some say it is more than a century old, others say it is only 50 years old. But it is believed that a garden for women was originally set up by King Habibullah Khan (who ruled Afghanistan from 1901 till 1919, when he was assassinated), for his wives. Later it was thrown open to all women."

Nilab Sadat had to brave opposition from family and friends to lead a team of 70-odd people - almost all men - engaged in reconstructing the women's garden.

Habibullah was a relatively secular and reformist ruler who attempted to modernise his country, bring Western medicine and other technology to Afghanistan and also opened the famous Habibia school in Kabul which is now being renovated with help from India.

Nilab adds that till 25 years ago, the garden thrived as a popular cultural spot for women; music concerts would be held here and singers would perform for women and children. "Though it had a lot of trees and greenery, there was no café or shops here. When two years ago the Ministry of Women's Affairs decided to revive this garden, it was nothing more than a garbage dump used by shop owners in the area. Nearly half-a-million US dollars have been allotted by the French and Japanese governments, the European Commission and GTZ (German Technical Cooperation), and we have already planted 800 fruit and flower trees and put up some play equipment for children."

More important, Nilab, who fled from Afghanistan during the Taliban years and was educated in Peshawar in Pakistan, thought it prudent to talk to both older women, some of whom had actually used the garden years ago, and young women about what they want the Baghe Zanana to become because "after all they will be the ones who'll use the place."

The Taliban regime has gone but women in Kabul are still reluctant to come out without burqa as seen in this Kabul marketplace.

Interestingly enough, while the older women wanted the garden to become what it once was — an idyllic green place where they could relax, where musicians could be invited and concerts held, the wish list from the younger women was quite different. "They wanted a cafeteria, a little marketplace with shops, a Net café and, above all, a gymnasium where they could exercise," points out Nilab. It reminded one of the comment made by a teacher at a girl's school in Kabul, who sought a gym from French benefactors with the cryptic and telling comment: "During the Taliban era we had forgotten that we had a body."

The women also asked for a counselling centre where they could come and pour their hearts out and seek professional help; "where they could express themselves freely without taking permission from their husbands", and this has already been established with a professional psychologist counselling the women. Most of the women seek professional counselling to help tackle domestic violence and for nightmares associated with the violent and bloody times they have survived.

Hatred of Taliban

On a Friday afternoon, we walk into the Baghe Zanana to find a totally different breed of women... unveiled, laughing, talking, gossiping and even teasing each other when it comes to topics like romancing Bollywood stars! There are at least a few hundred women and children at the garden, where the entrance fee is a nominal 3 Afghani ($1 fetches 48 Afghani), but the security is stringent as a bomb-strapped woman tried to gain entry into the place a couple of weeks ago.

Fourteen-year-old Naziya, who had escaped to Pakistan with her family during the Taliban regime, and returned to Kabul only two years ago, is quick to grab my arm and act as official guide and translator. "My Hindi is very good because I watch all the Hindi movies on Afghan TV channels where they are telecast with Pashto sub-titles," says the vivacious girl, whose favourite Bollywood star is Akshay Kumar. She and her family are "very, very happy to be back in Kabul, because we are at long last in our own country with our own people, and the wicked Taliban are gone." She takes me to her mother Zenan, who is seated among a group of about 30 women, one of them nursing her baby without any inhibition.

So are they happy that the Taliban are gone?

The spontaneous answers that come in response to this single question are an eye-opener. Savages, jahil (illiterate), animals, tormentors, are some of the adjectives used to describe the Taliban "who tortured us for so many years, compelled us to take our daughters out of schools and treated us as nothing less than animals."

Do they have fears of their return?

"Khuda khair karey (May God be kind to us); even their very mention gives me goose pimples," says Zenan with a shudder.

Family planning

The conversation soon turns to children, and when asked if the average number of children a woman has is four or five, Naziya says incredulously, "That is very, very common. Most women have more." An older woman in the group explains that after five or six daughters — who are mercifully not killed as in some pockets of India — the husband is sure to marry again, in search of the precious son. And in the quest for a son, a woman sometimes gives birth to as many as 10 children.

You just have to mention family planning, and there is an electric change in the atmosphere. A chorus of voices exclaims, "Do you have tablets to stop the birth of children; please give us the pills, we don't want to have so many children."

It is difficult to convince them that one is a mere journalist and not a doctor or a health worker. But surely there must be health clinics where some form of contraception would be available, one later asked Parveen, a member of RAWA (Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan). She responded that healthcare for women in Afghanistan was still at a very nascent stage, with the situation in the countryside being much worse than that in cities like Kabul. And, women just cannot risk being seen at the odd clinic or camp that offers such services to women.

Nilab would do well to look at this problem, because it was really sad to watch one woman after another come up to ask for birth-control pills.

In a country where health services have been battered beyond imagination, it was also poignant to see a couple of women coming up to ask for "medicines to get a baby". One woman confesses that if she did not conceive soon "my husband will take another wife, and that will be a tragedy for me."

One is soon surrounded by dozens of women, and Lyane Guillaume, a French writer who had taught French in the country 23 years ago and had organised our visit to the garden, comes in to say that other groups of women were getting agitated that the Indian visitor was not giving them any time!

Tortured and silenced for years, the cackle and the noise in the garden are sweeter to the ear than any music concert. After long years, these women have found their voice. Says 35-year-old Shaima, who has three sons and three daughters. "You can't imagine the kind of horrid times we've gone through. Don't think that it was only the Taliban who tortured the women of Afghanistan; our slow death began at the time of the Mujahideen; the tribal chieftains and their men were no better when it came to torturing us; many women were raped by those rascals. I have myself been beaten, my daughters could not go to school and I could not go to the bazaar for shopping. Thank God those days are over."

Very shyly and hesitantly another young woman seeks Naziya's help as a translator. The import of her question: She thinks she is fat; so can she please have some medicine to lose weight! One could do little to help besides suggesting that she should cut down on meats, butter and oil. In a country like Afghanistan you cannot ask a woman to go for a walk or work out in a gym. Another woman wants to know how to get rid of the blackheads on her face. As Nilab has also set up a small beauty clinic at the adjoining Bazaare Zanana, where the shops are located, when the rates come down a little, she should be able to avail of this service.

Shahrukh mania

But while the general situation of Afghan women and the kind of problems they face even today is tragic, what comes as a surprise is the mania for Bollywood stars. For a change Aishwarya Rai or Preity Zinta are not even mentioned. It is Shahrukh Khan — this man cannot even imagine the kind of mania and fantasies that prevail in the country about him — Akshaye Khanna, Sunny Deol and Ajay Devgan. And, of course, the latest heart-throb from the Khan clan... Zayed Khan.

The 18-year-old Masooda is absolutely bonkers on the young star and adores him so much that she wants to marry him. Fortunately one had caught a glimpse of his fiancée in the Filmfare magazine one had taken along to give as a gift in Kabul. When told he was engaged, said the attractive youngster clad in trendy jeans and a tight top and wearing heavy make-up — mascara, dark lipstick, nail polish et al — "That doesn't matter; I can be his second wife!"

As the other teenagers around her giggle, Masooda persists and begs for Zayed Khan's mobile number. Once again, just as on the birth-control pills front, one pleaded helplessness, but the teenager wouldn't relent till she had given her mobile phone number — most of the girls were obviously from affluent families as their clothes and mannerisms revealed and were all carrying mobile phones — with the promise that if one could get the young Khan's mobile number, it would be shared with her!

The others have a much simpler request: "Take our numbers and talk to us sometimes; we just love Indians. You won't partake of our picnic lunch, you won't come to our home for dinner; but at least don't forget us," was the refrain that totally floored you, after scores of invitations had been extended and turned down politely, as one was leaving the next morning.

The love for India goes beyond Bollywood... it appears that the Afghans love Indian names too... and hence 20-year-old Nadiya has changed her name to Geetha. Clad in a trendy short kurti and salwar, Geetha recalls that even though she had been away in Pakistan during the Taliban regime, she won't ever forget the "big lecture I got from a Talib during a visit to Kabul for wearing nail polish. I was so terrified I refused to come to Kabul till those people had gone. Even today I sometimes get nightmares about that encounter," she adds.

Pictures by the author

Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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