In 1990, at the height of the Taliban’s reign over Afghanistan, when horror stories abounded in the western world about the fundamentalist regime’s atrocities, particularly against women, a women’s rights organisation held a conference in Los Angeles. Afghan-American Suraya Sadeed, founder of the humanitarian charity Help the Afghan Children (HTAC), who had by then made several dangerous trips in and out of Afghanistan, was also invited.

To her utter amazement, one of the delegates walked up to her and wondered “how those poor women get vitamin D wearing a burka? I mean draped in that tent the whole time, their skin never getting a ray of sunshine…”

Little did the American delegate know that the burka isn’t worn inside the home and in an Afghanistan summer “a few minutes of hanging washing in the backyard was enough to top up any woman’s tan,” observes Suraya in her heartrending book, Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse (Hachette India).

A true story, this book is all about the writer’s incredibly courageous journeys into her war-ravaged homeland, which she was forced to leave after the Soviet invasion in 1979. She had to flee Kabul because being an elite — the governor’s daughter — she was sure to have been targeted. Arriving as penniless Afghan refugees in the US, via Germany, in 1982, while Dastagir, her husband, worked for a charity, Suraya was busy chasing the American dream. She was truly puzzled when the man she had married against her family’s wishes asked her “how much is enough”. After his sudden heart-attack and death, she slowly found the answer and HTAC became her life’s mission.

Suraya’s journey begins in 1993 with another Afghan-American friend; the two manage to collect $35,000 from the Afghan-American community in Virginia and go to Peshawar to help the Afghan victims there. Once she sees the appalling conditions in the refugee camps she knows life across the border would be much worse. As she decides to buy and carry 10,000 blankets into Afghanistan, her friend, viewing it as a suicidal mission, pulls out.

Suraya sees for herself how Pakistan uses that border “like a valve”, opening it only when the international community promises more aid for the Afghan refugees. Her journey is through the sealed border and she has to part with 10 precious blankets at each of the numerous check-posts. At some point she blows her fuse, breaks the taboo of a woman speaking, jumps out of the truck and confronts the 17-year-old militiaman who demands a dozen blankets as tax for safe passage. Defying him she snaps: “If you were man enough you’d buy the blankets needed to cover your mother and sisters, so we don’t have to bring them all the way from America.” And, an honourable Afghan man would get into the vehicle and ensure that the blankets reached their destination, she taunts him. To everybody’s amazement, he does just that and ends up calling her madar-jan (dear mother)!

Rudely woken to pray the next morning, Suraya ruminates about the Islam of her childhood, a faith that “was gentle and tolerant. It had much in common with Sufism, the philosophical, mystical branch of Islam that developed in the second century and flourished throughout Afghanistan.” But that faith which “deeply ingrained tolerance of others” was long gone.

While most of the narrative cruises between the author’s petrifying missions in a dangerous zone, the amazing kindness and financial support she gets from the Afghan-American community, as well as an unlikely quarter such as some Talibs, there are some hilarious passages too.

Take her account of her Afghanistan visit in 1998 with an earthquake relief fund of $100,000. She lands in Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, with the huge amount strapped around her stomach — the only safe way to carry cash in a violent, lawless land — her body covered with a black shawl. Crossing the Tajik-Afghan border after a bone-breaking journey, her group reaches Taloqan city, the prime opium region that gave the Northern Alliance ruling the funds required to take on the Taliban.

In this godforsaken place where nothing much is available, she finds every conceivable currency from roubles and yen to French francs. By now the afghani, which was 60 to a dollar in the mid-1970s, has devalued to 50,000 for each greenback. Conversion of $100,000 leaves her with 14 huge currency-filled burlap sacks. As several guards watch over the bounty locked in a private house in a region with zero law and order, Suraya rules out her usual mode of transport — a mule train — to reach the cash to the homeless quake victims in urgent need of food and warm clothes.

Through the intervention of Northern Alliance chief Massoud, her group of three manages to get a rickety helicopter with a stoned pilot, Saifullah, who insists on putting his extended family on board. Sixteen people, 14 sacks of cash, six chicken and four steel ladders, all get loaded onto a helicopter meant for eight. An entire chapter devoted to the flight is as captivating as scary!

As HTAC takes on more commitments — clinics for the sick, caring for orphan children, helping quake victims — money is never enough. But with every new cause, somehow the money comes in, including from the Oprah Winfrey Foundation.

Of course, Suraya’s biggest contribution is undertaking the dangerous task of starting secret schools for girls right under the nose of the Taliban. The first such school is started in the basement of Sabera, an Afghan headmistress, with just 20 students.

After 9/11, Suraya despairs that all the aid she had been getting from American citizens would dry up. But, on the contrary, she is blown away by the messages of support, and even more money, she gets. The high point comes in 2003, when she gets a mail from Oprah herself, announcing a donation of $1 million to expand her work and build more schools.

Demolishing myths

Suraya’s book demolishes many myths about Afghanistan, such as the burka not being an invention of the Taliban but having a long history in that country. Once a status symbol and worn only by the wealthy, women were later encouraged to discard it to show that Afghanistan was an open society. There is much anguish in the book as Suraya returns to a devastated land that was once full of fruit orchards, music and fun, and a dehumanised/ broken people who were once so proud and courageous. On her trips she is shattered to find that the only flowers that remain are the colourful opium poppy flowers; her country is now “ruled by a beautiful but deadly bloom”, which is called the Gol-e-Shaitan (devil’s flowers).

In this extremely moving book about the incredible journey of a woman who reaches out to help Afghan women and children, at some points you do get the occasional over-the-top feeling. Such as the author being constantly “amazed” at the greatness and generosity of the American people. Or, when she praises the Taliban for having at least brought some semblance of peace to violence-torn Afghanistan, and is at pains to prove that there are some good Taliban too.

But read this book for a poignant look into the battered lives of a people tormented by a series of invaders, conquerors, militia, mujahideen, and the post-9/11 US-led bombings… and marvel at the indomitable spirit of a people who never say die.

The epilogue points out that the HTAC now has over 100,000 students, of whom 27,000 are in Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban. But the author adds that as the HTAC moves ahead with hope and resolve, “our progress is tinged with fear. We worry about the resurgence of the Taliban, which endangers all that we have achieved. If their war on knowledge triumphs, it will be a disaster for a new generation.” That is why the international community must hold its resolve in Afghanistan… for the sake of its children, she concludes.

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