Saffron below the skullcap

From the heartland of Hindutva, it takes a mere hour and a half for Ariana Afghan airlines to fly to Kabul. But Afghanistan8217;s minuscule...

From the heartland of Hindutva, it takes a mere hour and a half for Ariana Afghan airlines to fly to Kabul. But Afghanistan8217;s minuscule Hindu and Sikh population, having survived both the brutal persecution and the humourless whim of the Taliban, could still teach a few lessons in humanity and humility to their extremist co-religionists in India.

Kanshi Ram, who lives in the dargah of Mathura Das Swami in Jalalabad, says that as far as he can remember, he has worn a skullcap over his head. Standing next to him in the precincts of Kabul8217;s dharamshala, Ranjit Lal Mehar turns out to be the local Hindu community8217;s pujari. He, too, wears a skullcap. Oddly, neither thinks it even remotely strange that they should be doing otherwise. 8216;8216;We8217;ve worn this even before the Taliban came to power. It doesn8217;t matter if you8217;re Hindu or Muslim, in Afghanistan all men wear the topi, they say.

Then you ask Ranjit Lal if he knows any bhajans or mantras. 8216;8216;A few,8217;8217; he admits shyly, then haltingly recites some lines to the sheranwaali maata.

They8217;re more Bollywood than Vedic, but clearly, the handful of Hindus that did not flee the Taliban decade don8217;t care too much. There8217;s a calendar print of Durga in the nearby temple, a later addition since neither idols nor godly photos were allowed during the Taliban regime. Lal also presides over another temple devoted to the 8216;Panjshir swami8217;, and gives us the sweetest grapes in the world as prasad. 8216;8216;My abbu taught me these bhajans before he went away to India. That8217;s when I became the pujari,8217;8217; Ranjit Lal says.

To find this commingling of humanism on a day trip to bombed-out Kabul is somewhat surreal. This is the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan after all, and even if the Americans have sponsored the Shimla-and-later-US educated Hamid Karzai to the throne, you would expect the veneer of Islamic ritual associated with monochromatic Saudi Arabia or at least neighbouring Iran, to apply to heathen visitors.

No such thing, however. Even jeans will do. And although the blue shuttlecock burkha dominates the city view, more and more, you can see bleached hair, eyes lined with kohl and made-up lips. At a now-silent fountain in the gardens that surround the grave of Babur he died here in 1530 AD, having won Hindustan four years before, I spy a young woman lounging around, her pajama-pants suitably pulled up to her calves. But back in the heart of Kabul, we ask Hindus and Sikhs if they had to wear the yellow identification badges ordered by the Taliban the Sikhs didn8217;t, they were already identified with their turbans. Kanshi Ram, who refused to leave Jalalabad because 8216;8216;there was a shop to attend to8217;8217; his wife, sons, daughters, neighbours, friends, all left for India said the compromise, ultimately, was a thread called the jenju worn around their bodies in the manner of the Brahminical janeu.

Outside in the streets, Sikhs do brisk business in their kirana shops, selling Chinese-made baby powder, Pakistan-made soap and toothbrushes and oil, but mostly home-grown spices. There are jars and jars of red chilli powder, turmeric and zeera on the shelves. The young owners, barely in their twenties, wear their turbans and karas and switch easily from Punjabi to Pharsi to Hindustani to Dari.

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8216;8216;We are Afghan Sikhs,8217;8217; says Manjit Singh. 8220;We were born here, our forefathers have lived here for generations. We did not go to India because we had our business to attend to. Many Hindus and Sikhs are now returning because they were much better off here.8217;8217;

But the journey to Kabul has really begun in the Afghan consulate in New Delhi, where young Sikh men and women are queueing up to go home. 8216;8216;I remember the winter when it snowed in Kunduz,8217;8217; says Pinky, who left 15 years ago when she was a young girl. She adds, 8216;8216;Your legs would plunge knee-high in the snow. I am so excited. I am waiting to go home.8217;8217;