Conversations With An Afghan Teacher: Part 5

Perhaps, it was the lens of identity through which I like most had looked at our culture, as the “Afghan” teacher suggested. I was proud of it and anything said against it hurt my ego. At the first conversation, I realized that I loved the image of the culture (as my natural ID) more than the culture, and in practice, I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it. It allowed me to set aside my ego and rethink it. In the process, I faced the reality that I was pride of a collection of things and practices that had very little intellectual foundation. 

I used to go to the library of center of excellence in mineralogy after my classes to do some reading. It was the quietest part of the University and I barely came across another person there in days. That day, I got out of University soon after I finished my classes. By that time, Hazaras had been attacked several times by the terrorists, still, Saryab road and surrounded areas had not turned into a no-go-area for Hazaras yet, and instead of Sabzal road, I rode through backstreets to cut the travel time as well as to avoid the crazy drivers and their overloaded trucks. All the way, I rehearsed my questions. By the time, I arrived at Hussain Abad road, I had rehearsed my questions several times and I felt, I was ready to face the teacher. The feelings gave me shots of relaxation and confidence. I parked my bike next to a popcorn cart, bought a bag of freshly popped warm-creamy-salty popcorn and sat next to a watch vendor on the front-step of a store. The street was packed with people and there were plenty to not get bored. 

The town was new and rapidly expanding. It happened many times that someone inquired about a street or a neighborhood and I had no clue. The streets frequently changed names and no postal address was assigned to any house or any other building in the town. The streets of the town was already aged and worn out. Like a young overweight person, she struggled to go with everyday life. There was a clear division between the city and the sky that watched over her. While the city was deeply segregated and the government services were unequally “distributed”, the sky shared sunshine and polluted air equally to all the creatures. Like the people, the valley’s bedrocks were broken and wrenched by active faults and folds and had plenty of fossilized water. I worried about a time when the thick forest of the people gasp for fresh air and water like creatures of a drying pool. The absence of prominent buildings informed visitors that “important” persons didn’t consider the town worthy of themselves, and in a society obsessed with VIP culture, that simply meant, the resident of the town weren’t important at all. Though the town was very humble, she possessed the strange ability to provoke immense emotions. She charmed me with the abundant young faces who rushed from a school to another school and from one academy to another one. The broken streets between those schools and academies were the only paths left to hopeful tomorrows. And, she tormented my soul with visibly exhausted middle-aged and older men and women whose sunken eyes struggled to remain open under the load of worries. 

I saw the teacher coming. Only his age and relaxed walking differentiated him from students. 

“Salam Ustad.” I offered popcorn as I approached him. “Do you recognize me?”

“Salam.” he picked few popcorn. “Yes, yes, why not…. so, what we are discussing this time, politics, culture or something else?” he asked. I liked his style. He saved time by avoiding formal repetitive inquires about health, business, studies, family...blah, blah, blah… 

“What about an easy and practical definition of culture?” I suggested.

“Basha (OK), basha (OK)” he smiled. 

We walked for a while without talking. He maintained his light smile. “Do you agree that we all have unique set of habits, both healthy and unhealthy ones?” 

“That’s obvious!” I replied.

“Just as each individual has a set of unique habits, each society has a set of collective habits and that’s their culture.”

For a while, I couldn’t think of anything. I needed time to process the definition. I prepared and rehearsed some questions about cultural “features” and the processes that shaped them. The conversation took a different track than I anticipated from very beginning, nonetheless, I liked the explanation. It was definitely simple and practical. Still I needed something that I could call “intellectual”.

“Ustad, do you remember, the other day you asked me, if I feel better by participating in happy occasions like marriage parties and Eids?”

“Yes, yes, I remember…” he interrupted.

“Don’t you agree that the more knowledge a person gains, he grows more discontent with his situation?”

“For example?” he asked.

“Like, when I was a kid, everything seemed perfect and I enjoyed everything. As I grew up and learned more about our past and present, I became discontent with almost everything.” 

“In that sense, yes, I do agree.”

“You may also heard Socrates believed that, ‘Knowledge is virtue.”

“Yes. I know that…..”

“Then, Do you think, discomfort is also virtue?” I interrupted him. 

“Huh” he chuckled. “Before I express my opinion on the relation of knowledge and comfort to virtue, I want to tell you what I think about notion of virtue…”

“That’s fair.”

“My understanding is that the concept of virtue has considerably evolved. From code of Hammurabi to the time of Greeks and Romans, the concept of honor or an eye for an eye stood at the core of concept of virtue. If you was harmed and you couldn’t exact an revenge, you had no honor. The good warriors were celebrated as national heroes. The tribal societies of our region still stand on the same concept. You may have heard that a tribal chief proudly boasted his first killing at age of twelve in an interview . The Christians upgraded the concept of virtue by declaring that love and forgiveness is more virtuous than revenge. Saints gained higher ranking than warriors. Islam introduced the classes of virtues, Qisas (revenge), diyya (compensation money) and forgiveness. Islamic saints were good warriors as well as kind and merciful. In modern world, the nations have agreed on human rights, and now, human rights is a global virtue. My point is that the concept of virtue is not a fixed one. It is evolving, and so are the concepts of knowledge and comfort…”

Continued….

Conversations With An Afghan Teacher; Part 4

I brain-stormed to come up with my own definitions and when no more spot left on the page for another circle and a line to go around all those closely spaced circles, and their connecting lines to the main circle, I looked at my mind-map to find the most relevant ideas and organize them in a meaningful order. The mind-map appeared like the pile of second-hand clothes at landa-bazaar and finding the relevant ideas were like finding decent clothes of your size from those piles. 

The year was 2004, and I was obsessed with Geology, checked out a lot of geology books and spent most of my time reading them and looked at everything through lenses of the geological concepts. What I liked most about Geology was that it explained every land feature through the mechanism of plate tectonics. It was a surreal experience and had changed my taste permanently. The other neat thing about Geology that had won over me was, though its subjects were mostly Earth’s history but the processes that shaped Earth’s history were still alive and observable, and in that sense, I was in love with the idea of “Present is key to the past.” 

I looked at my landa-bazaar type mind-map and tried to find “features” that I could link them in “plate tectonic” style. It was like trying to cook a popular hotel recipe at home but not knowing the proper ingredients and measures and still expecting the same good look and taste. 

The biggest circle in the center of the page hosted the phrase, “Forces that cause appearances and disappearances of cultural features”, and it was connected to other circles hosted those “forces” and each circle had little notes with tiny fonts sizes to include some features. War, Famine, Conversion, Invention and Major Constructions were the main forces and most of the notes, explained nearly the same thing, like, those forces resulted in migration, resettlement, new rivalries, economic competitions and transfer of ideas and material wealth, changes in gene pools...blah blah blah.

As I look through some of my old notes that somehow survived and are associated with those days, it occurs to me that my biggest struggle was to be clear about the “transition”. In those days, I used to hear the expressions from different people, “we are in transitional stage”, but no one explained what they meant by transitional stage and that worried me. Like many, I believed, change was the only constant. Paradoxical that it had sound, it made perfect sense to me. I made a list of cultural features that were rapidly disappearing and a parallel list of cultural features that were becoming mainstream and the “forces” behind those appearances and disappearances. It was two column list and with tiny notes all around it that explained and compared those features. The result were a set of questions, or concerns, to be more precise. 

Usually, I come across the conversations about “progress” and I was aware of points made in favor and against of the notion. My biggest concern was, what a real progress meant? I compared my list, and almost all of the changes appeared to me as results of “improved purchasing power”, access to “modern products” and changes in perspectives as results of “political developments in the region.” All those changes were introduced by people other than people of my community. We were just the end consumers. That was a very shallow and superficial concept of “progress”. They were like teeny-tiny form of the “progress in the Gulf states” as result of their purchasing power from oil exports. That made me to question a number of other major concepts that we held so dear. Were our concepts of morality, justice, generosity (big heart), success in this world and world after, living the lives of freemen (just, brave, bowing to no one but God), brotherhood (equality)....blah blah were as shallow and superficial as our concepts of “progress”? If we had “longer measuring stick” for those ideals than the rest, did they translate in deeper, more meaningful and content lives? Did our culture really base on those ideals? Were the changes indicative of moving up or down on the yardstick? 

Those were the really messy questions. What made me really uncomfortable was that in practice, we, as a community had mistaken the improved purchasing power of few with progress, and that blinded us of our century long uprooting that were hollowing us from inside. I did try to think of clear messages, so I could went out and stirred debates but everything I thought weren’t convincing enough to me. I thought about the Afghan teacher and decided to meet him to see, if he had something to offer? 

Continued….

Conversations With An Afghan Teacher: Part 3

I got busy with my routines and forgot about the conversation. I guess, over time my mind’s “recycle bin” had been grown more active at the cost of rest of it. Anything that didn’t touch me deeply was quickly trashed into the recycle bin. I should say it in my defense that I wasn’t arrogant and thinking of myself high but as I imagined that there were so many fascinating things that I wasn’t aware of, I simply didn’t want to waste my time on less fascinating things. An afternoon, on of way back from University, I saw the teacher again. I paddled faster my bicycle past the teacher so he couldn’t see me. 

I had a mixed feelings about our first conversation. Some of the teacher’s ideas were new for me but as I felt that I had embarrassed myself by jumping from one question to another without adding something meaningful, I wasn’t ready to go through another session of embarrassments that soon 😛. 

I escaped from being noticed by the teacher but I failed to take him out of my mind. In the conversation, he mentioned the “wisdom of East”, and at that age wisdom appeared to me something mysterious that special people possessed. I wanted to know what teacher actually meant by wisdom of East. My earlier experiences with what I considered part of the “Wisdom of East” weren’t pleasant. 

I had watched some of the martial arts movies and read some rudimentary books on the power of breathing and concentration exercises and tried some of those exercises without any positive results 🙈. I concluded that one of the two things are true; either those exercises were just imaginations of the charlatans or they needed some special talents and I had no talents for such things. I actually tried to learn them from the “experts” as well. I remember that in our neighborhood, a new Kung-Fu master arrived. He started a class in a dark and damp basement. The basement had neither windows nor stairs. In order to get into the basement, one had to climb down a ladder that was placed against a square hole cut in the floor of first floor. I visited the club several times to see the skill levels of the master. The master had the same hair style, body shape, walked and screamed like Bruce Lee except that Bruce Lee was shorter and didn’t wear the red ribbon like the master. May be Bruce Lee didn’t need red ribbon for evil eyes or personal charisma 🙏. 

I got impressed and enrolled in the class, despite not having money for uniforms. The master allowed to practice with regular activewear. In the class, everyone had a practice partner. The partners practiced kicks and punches on each other and exercised together. My partner was a fat bakery boy who was older than me a couple of years. I really enjoyed punching and kicking his pulpy body. He had heavy hands but his punches didn’t hurt. He wasn’t able to kick and that was fun too. But that wasn’t all. During abdominal exercises the partners had to cross their legs and do the workouts. My partner was a gaseous guy and lost total control during abs exercises and that was disgusting. The basement was already a microcosm of advanced level of global warming. It was hot, damp and filled with smell of perspiration of the students and I like Bangladesh I had to bear the most of my partners greenhouse gases. I bore all those things just to get enlightened by the master’s lectures. At the end of each session, he delivered a brief lecture. But all those lectures were about not using our improved punching and kicking abilities in the street fights. Those lectures didn’t work at all, as I actually started looking for troubles to test the improvements 😈. After a few months, I got bored with repetition and left the class. Years later, a new large multi-story building was constructed which had a large, well-lighted and aerated basement. The master had also earned a good name for himself. I enrolled in the class in hope to see the concepts in the practice. The master, somehow stressed more on improving the physical strength than teaching the art. He kicked and punched with full force on the stomach, back and legs. I left the class in a month as I didn’t want to live with damaged internal organs and nerves all my life. 

As the Afghan teacher didn’t require any special uniform, he didn’t charge me for conversation and I had not to tolerate the greenhouses and beatings, and hoped that the teacher might had known things that I didn’t, I decided to meet him again.

Continued….

Conversations With An Afghan Teacher: Part 2

“There is a renewed interest and disagreements about Hazaragi culture. How do you define a culture?” I asked.

“We are in Hazara Town, right?” He asked me instead of answering my question.

“Haw, I guess, we are.” I chuckled.

“And most of the people who live in this town are Hazara, right?”

“Yes!”

“Then, look around and you see Hazaragi culture.”

“I know that.” I protested. “I expected an educated opinion from you.”

“That’s my opinion.” He smiled.

I couldn’t think of something and there was a bitter silence for a while. I hated when things were abstract, particularly, when real things appeared abstract.

“I can sense your discontent.” the teacher broke the silence. “And I guess, the main reason for your discontent is your dissatisfaction with the culture you are living in. You are not accepting what you are surrounded with and want something more glorious. Maybe something you take pride in, right?”

He was partially right. I just nodded.

“You see, I am also dissatisfied and want changes. But change without a clear understanding of what you want will only result in chaos.”

The word “change” made me think of two groups, socialists and religious groups. Both were more clear than the rest in what they wanted. The teacher couldn’t be an Islamist, so he must be a socialist, I thought.

“Do you dream of a classless society or something?”

“A classless society sounds good but I am not an idealist to have such desires.” he smiled.

“What do you want?”

“I am still working on it.”

I couldn’t believe that a middle-aged, apparently thoughtful person wasn’t still clear about the changes he wanted in society.

“So, all you want is stability?” I asked. “No change, right?”

Let me ask you a few questions.” He asked.

“OK.”

“When you go to a marriage party, do you feel more comfortable in the party and return from the party more content than your routine days?”

“I am not a party person,” I replied. “I try to avoid marriage parties as much I can.”

“What about Eid days?” he asked another question. “Do you feel happier on Eid days than the rest of the days?”

“No.” It was too embarrassing to tell the reasons that made me feel uncomfortable on those days.

“If you don’t feel better on the happiest occasions then, I assume, the sad occasions don’t make you feel better either, right?”

“Right.”

“Don’t you think taking pride in things that make you uncomfortable is a bit unreasonable?”

I was unprepared for the question. Pride was the main driver of the Hazara diaspora of Quetta. Everything (both national and religious) revolved around pride. I felt as if my existence and everything that I stood for were questioned. I couldn’t think of anything and just nodded.

“Have you heard about Buddhas of Bamiyan?”

“Everybody knows about those statues.”

“What comes to your mind when you think of links between the statues and Hazaras?”

“That we were Buddhists before conversion to Islam.”

“Right.” The teacher agreed. “But other than statues, do you recognize any other aspect of Buddhism in our culture?”

“No. But that is not important.” I replied.

“How?” He asked.

“In those days, Buddhism was the religion of Central Asia, South Asia, and the Far East. It wasn’t limited to Bamiyan. Buddhist statues and stupas were found all across the region.”

“You are right.” He smiled. “The reason I asked you the question is to point out the fact that during our conversion to Islam, we got rid of our whole heritage. Maybe you are aware that people from all around the world go to what you call the “Far East” region in search of mental and physical health. Meditation, yoga, martial arts, traditional healing through massage, herbal teas, acupuncture, and food are considered as “wisdom of the East”. What is our share in the wisdom of the East?”

I had not thought along those lines and had nothing to add.

“I am not criticizing our past. I am critical of our present. We are repeating the same mistakes. If we were fortunate enough and had some visionary people, they certainly preserved good parts of older traditions while embracing the good of new ones. We are once again in the middle of a transitional stage. We are adopting new things and trashing our old tradition but we are doing so just by following the popular trends. We are not critical and that’s the main reason that neither our happy occasions make us feel good nor our sad occasions. In fact, we are developing a culture that encourages feeling bad about everything. Our houses look more like stores than houses, everything is for show-off and there is very little in them to soothe the souls and bodies. Our celebrations are filled with ostentatious things, unhealthy foods and we take pride in things that do not exist anymore….”

As we were close to our home, I interrupted him, “What do you suggest?”

“About what?”

“About our culture.”

“It is not me or you who make our culture. It is our people but we have our own roles. If we want our culture to survive and prosper, we have to put mental and physical well-being at the center of our culture. Otherwise, we are only destined for total disintegration. Empty prides are too weak to keep us together....”

“But what are our Hazaragi traditional dresses, caps, cuisines, and languages?” I interrupted him again. “Aren’t they unique enough to preserve our identity?”

“I am not saying those things aren’t important. But we are no longer living in an alienated world. In our world, the things you mentioned have become trade goods and trade goods change frequently as market changes….”

We were in front of our house. I was so consumed by the conversation that I barely noticed things around me. I invited him for a cup of tea. He declined the invitation by saying that he needed things to do, and promised to meet me again to continue our conversation.


Continued…

Conversations With An "Afghan" Teacher

Although the conversation is more than a decade old, it is still relevant today:

As I neared Barma Road (Hussain Abad, Hazara Town, Quetta), I heard the loud sounds of noha and matam. I thought a procession was approaching, so I braked my bicycle and waited for the procession to pass. After a minute or two, Abdullah’s pas-sari’s cart showed up. It wasn’t a Muharram procession but Abdullah’s tape recorder that played loud noha. It was embarrassing and amusing. If people could read my mind, there would be a burst of laughter. I was about to mount on my bicycle when I spotted the “Afghan” teacher. I identified him easily as most of the time he wore a khaki overcoat over a white shalwar kameez held a couple of books in his right hand and walked slowly with his head down as if he was looking for something on the asphalt. He was a short, bony, and bespectacled man, with brown curly hair. Although I had no acquaintance with him I had seen him many times on the road and from his appearance, I had developed the perception of a thoughtful person and it was my chance to find out. I walked fast and soon, I was walking along with the teacher.

“Salam Ustad.”

“Walaikum Salam!” the teacher replied while he looked at me in puzzlement. 

“I guess, you are a teacher,” I asked.

He nodded.

“I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.” I continued.

“Befurma (ask please)” he answered politely.

In those days, I was reading an American textbook on politics, that I had borrowed from the provincial library. It was my first introduction to Aristotle’s cycle of political change, individualism, social rights movement, and libertarianism. I wanted to dig deeper and was looking for more resources on the subjects. Inspired by Socrates, I was also trying to “mind-map” my own concepts.

“How do you define politics?” I asked the teacher.

“You look like a reasonable person.” he smiled.

“I don’t know, how reasonable am I, but I like reasoning and respect people with reasoning,” I replied.

He took out a toffee from his pocket and asked, “How much is the toffee?”

“Char-anna (a quarter of a rupee)”

“Do you like toffees?”

“Yes!”

“Do you often buy toffees?”

“Yes.”

“Do you buy particular toffee brands or do you buy any toffee when you go to stores?”

“I am very picky when it comes to toffees!”

“That’s politics.”

“How?” I was puzzled.

“Money is power and when you choose to buy one brand over another, you are actually empowering the company that produces that brand.”

“I never thought it that way.”

“That’s the problem. Even our most literate ones aren’t aware of the power of their actions.” He smiled.

I was embarrassed and wanted to change the topic.

“There is a renewed interest and also disagreements on Hazaragi culture. How do you define a culture?” I asked.

Continued….