On the edge

It was a long working day and I had to stay late at the road construction site,20 kilometers from Af-Pak border in order to complete the pending work.

While Kabul attacks are recent,living under threat is nothing unusual for Indians in Afghanistan

It was a long working day and I had to stay late at the road construction site,20 kilometers from Af-Pak border in order to complete the pending work. By 8 pm,most of the workers on the site went back to the base camp 15 kilometres from the site and I was left with a team of Afghani nationals who were labourers on the site. By 9.30,I got a call from my friend saying he saw a group of 15 Talibanis crossing the Pakistan border. I rushed to my Afghani driver and we drove in full speed to the base camp. I will never forget the next day,a misty morning when I went back to the construction site just to witness six dead bodies of my subordinate Afghani labourers kept side-by-side. I could have been one of them had I not run, the fear in his voice is significant even three years after the experience as engineer Ramesh Reddy narrates the incident that made him pack his bags and return to India from the construction project he was doing in Afghanistan.

It might have taken the recent attacks in Kabul to bring the issue of safety of Indians on the forefront,but the accounts of those who’ve stayed in Afghanistan reveal that life in the land of Pashtuns has always been a balancing act between life and death where every extra day of survival is a bonus- not only for Indians but for every human being. “In my two-year stay between December 2004 to 2006,I witnessed eight blasts near the construction site. In fact one of the blasts was so massive that the steel railings of the road that we were constructing broke into two,” says Jayaprakash Vijapure,project manager,at the collaborated road construction project undertaken by BSC and CNC Limited adding,”Our project had over 400 Indians along with native Afghani people.”

Majority of the Indian population in Afghanistan is scattered between Kabul- Kandahar belt and 31-year-old Reddy adds,”Indians are perceived as friends in Afghanistan,however,every moment there is spent under immense pressure. Even for shopping,we have to be accompanied by the security forces. Suddenly while walking on the streets,you might be stopped and questioned about your ethnicity and the purpose of visit to their country. The problem is that Afghanis and Talibanis look alike because of their attire and there are times when you are given long religious lectures as well.”

With base camps as the comparatively safe place,television is the only source of entertainment for majority of Indians living in Afghanistan. “The country has a large population of Sikhs who are inhabitants for over 500 years. As a result,all the Indian channels are popular in Afghanistan. I was surprised to hear the title song of Saans bhi kabhi bahu thee from one of the Afghani households. Not only that,Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan are their favourite actors,” adds Vijapure.

Another paradise made hell by human disputes; Vijapure feels that Afghanistan,with its snow-covered mountain ranges is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. “Sometimes,the temperatures even drop below minus seven degrees. The eight-hour Kabul- Kandahar drive is one of the most picturesque journeys I have ever been on. But the sad part of the story is that the only journey I tend to remember is that when our car was fired while on the highway and not any other,” he concludes.

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