Page 379 - Leadership in the Indian Army

precisely the sort of life she used to dream for herself in her darkest

days with Rasheed. Every day, Laila reminds herself of this.

Then one warm night in July 2002, she and Tariq are lying in bed

talking in hushed voices about all the changes back home. There have

been so many. The coalition forces have driven the Taliban out of every
major city, pushed them across the border to Pakistan and to the

mountains in the south and east of Afghanistan. ISAF, an international

peacekeeping force, has been sent to Kabul. The country has an interim

president now, Hamid Karzai.

Laila decides that now is the time to tell Tariq.

A year ago, she would have gladly given an arm to get out of Kabul.

But in the last few months, she has found herself missing the city of her

childhood. She misses the bustle of Shor Bazaar, the Gardens of Babur,

the call of the water carriers lugging their goatskin bags. She misses the
garment hagglers at Chicken Street and the melon hawkers in

Karteh-Parwan.

But it isn't mere homesickness or nostalgia that has Laila thinking of

Kabul so much these days. She has become plagued by restlessness. She

hears of schools built in Kabul, roads repaved, women returning to work,

and her life here, pleasant as it is, grateful as she is for it, seems…
insufficient to her. Inconsequential Worse yet, wasteful. Of late, she has

started hearing Babi's voice in her head. You can be anything you want,
Laila, he says. I know this about you. And Ialso know that when this war

is over, Afghanistan is going to need you.