Page 153 - Leadership in the Indian Army

ditches, on the banks of which tiny female figures squatted and washed

clothes. Babi pointed to rice paddies and barley fields draping the slopes.
It was autumn, and Laila could make out people in bright tunics on the

roofs of mud brick dwellings laying out the harvest to dry. The main road

going through the town was poplar-lined too. There were small shops and

teahouses and street-side barbers on either side of it. Beyond the village,
beyond the river and the streams, Laila saw foothills, bare and dusty

brown, and, beyond those, as beyond everything else in Afghanistan, the

snowcapped Hindu Kush.

The sky above all of this was an immaculate, spotless blue.
"It's so quiet," Laila breathed. She could see tiny sheep and horses but

couldn't hear their bleating and whinnying.

"It's what I always remember about being up here," Babi said. "The
silence. The peace of it. I wanted you to experience it. But I also wanted

you to see your country's heritage, children, to learn of its rich past. You

see, some things I can teach you. Some you learn from books. But there
are things that, well, you just have to see and feel."

"Look," said Tariq.

They watched a hawk, gliding in circles above the village.

"Did you ever bring Mammy up here?" Laila asked

"Oh, many times. Before the boys were born. After too. Your mother,

she used to be adventurous then, and…so alive. She was just about the

liveliest, happiest person I'd ever met." He smiled at the memory. "She
had this laugh. I swear it's why I married her, Laila, for that laugh. It