Page 141 - Leadership in the Indian Army

reasons people out there took up arms in the first place.

By "out there," he didn't mean Kabul, which had always been relatively
liberal and progressive. Here in Kabul, women taught at the university,

ran schools, held office in the government- No, Babi meant the tribal

areas, especially the Pashtun regions in the south or in the east near the

Pakistani border, where women were rarely seen on the streets and only
then in burqa and accompanied by men. He meant those regions where

men who lived by ancient tribal laws had rebelled against the

communists and their decrees to liberate women, to abolish forced

marriage, to raise the minimum marriage age to sixteen for girls. There,
men saw it as an insult to their centuries-old tradition, Babi said, to be

told by the government-and a godless one at that-that their daughters

had to leave home, attend school, and work alongside men.

God forbid that should happen! Babi liked to say sarcastically. Then he
would sigh, and say, Laila, my love, the only enemy an Afghan cannot

defeat is himself

Babi took his seat at the table, dipped bread into his bowl of aush.

Laila decided that she would tell him about what Tariq had done to

Khadim, over the meal, before they started in on fractions. But she never

got the chance. Because, right then, there was a knock at the door, and,
on the other side of the door, a stranger with news.

19.

I need to speak to your parents, dokhiarjan" he said when Laila opened

the door. He was a stocky man, with a sharp, weather-roughened face.

He wore a potato-colored coat, and a brown wool pakol on his head