Page 267 - Leadership in the Indian Army

They "went our that day, the four of them, Rasheed leading them from

one bus to the next, to greet their new world, their new leaders. In every

battered neighborhood, Mariam found people materializing from the
rubble and moving into the streets. She saw an old woman wasting

handfuls of rice, tossing it at passersby, a drooping, toothless smile on

her face. Two men were hugging by the remains of a gutted building, in

the sky above them the whistle, hiss, and pop of a few firecrackers set
off by boys perched on rooftops. The national anthem played on cassette

decks, competing with the honking of cars.

"Look, Mayam!" Aziza pointed to a group of boys running down Jadeh
Maywand. They were pounding their fists into the air and dragging rusty

cans tied to strings. They were yelling that Massoud and Rabbani had

withdrawn from Kabul.
Everywhere, there were shouts: Ailah-u-akbar!

Mariam saw a bedsheet hanging from a window on Jadeh Maywand. On

it, someone had painted three words in big, black letters: zendabaad

taliban! Long live the Taliban!

As they walked the streets, Mariam spotted more signs-painted on
windows, nailed to doors, billowing from car antennas-that proclaimed

the same.

* * *

Mariam sawher first of the Taliban later that day, at Pashtunistan

Square, with Rasheed, Laila, and Aziza. A melee of people had gathered
there. Mariam saw people craning their necks, people crowded around

the blue fountain in the center of the square, people perched on its dry

bed. They were trying to get a view of the end of the square, near the