A magical story about my lost dog.

 

This is a magical story about my lost dog.

            I have three mongrel dogs, around 18 months old. Two brothers came straight from their mother to us when they were a month old. As pups, they looked like huskies with their blonde coats. The third, Prince, a month or two older, had survived the harsh street life of Madras. My cook found him and brought him to us. He has a faint resemblance to an Alsatian’s colouring but with a very curly tail. He fitted in but his experiences had scarred him and he would not take a daily walk on the road. The gate could remain wide open and he would not put a foot outside. He was frightened of the street.  A handsome dog wearing a red collar with a nametag attached

            On September 18^th night, my stupid watchman left the gate open. Prince and one brother, chasing a cat, raced up the 50-metre earthen lane that leads to my house. Moments later came thunder, lightning and heavy rains. The brother raced back, Prince vanished into the storm. Dog experts tell us that the first 48 hours are vital in finding a lost dog. It hasn’t gone far.  After that the odds mount – a month is ‘forget it you’ll never see it again. He’s moved too far searching for his home.’  

I searched for him, whistling and calling, but he was nowhere in sight. The next day, Maureen, my staff and I walked the streets looking for him. Two days later, my gardener saw him half down my road by a teashop and tried to catch him. Too frightened, Prince ran. It turned out he had been hiding first in a building site and then down a lane.  It was raining again but we searched all the roads and lanes.  Like every road, we have our share of street dogs, always in the same spot, looking well fed.  No Prince. I created a poster with his photograph and offered a generous reward for the finder. These were distributed throughout the neighbourhood and stuck on walls. A woman called, she’d seen him at 4 am nearby. Maureen and I went out at four the next day, walked and called. Then someone said he was seen at night and we walked at nights. He had vanished again.  The Hindu newspaper, in its pet’s page, had him with his photo as a missing dog. Two weeks later, the paper ran it again. A local paper also ran a story of him, with his photo. He was also on two Face book sites. I must add that people do respond and call in but this time – silence. No one had seen him.

Two good friends,  Angelika, a German woman living in the city, and Kiran who had German contacts,  suggested we consult a dog psychic living in Germany. A German dog psychic!! And living 10,000 miles away! As two weeks had passed since his sighting, I would try anything. I knew the odds were stacking up against us finding him. I Googled ‘dog psychic’ and found a few in America, and very expensive. Germany was closer, for what that was worth. The psychic needed his photo, our photos, staff photos and shots of our house, the lane. Obediently, we sent them off. Three days later, she emailed in German (translated for us). She wrote that he was very frightened and desperate. That stressed us further as we knew he hated the streets. She continued that ‘Prince showed me that he was hiding under a blue tarpaulin in a building site.’ She added that it was near us.  There are seven building sites on my road alone, and we visited every one. In one, there was a blue tarpaulin but he wasn’t under it. How on earth, sitting in Germany did she see that through his eyes? How are they ‘talking’? She speaks German, possibly English, he has a dog’s grasp of English, Tamil and Telugu!

A week later, in the evening, the ironing man (we send our clothes out to be ironed) just down the road, called saying Prince had just run past him very fast. I raced over. He and another man gave chase on their scooters but lost him when he turned a corner. Everyone now searched up and down roads, lane, houses. Again, he had vanished. We left our gate wide open24x7 and at night placed a couple of his toys – my chewed Nike tennis shoe, a plastic ball – in the hope that passing by he’d recognise his toys. No further word from the psychic.

It was now four weeks. I escalated and had 15,000 flyers printed up and slipped into two major newspapers distributed in my area. Surely, someone would see him now. I did get a call and went to the place but none had seen him in that area.

It was nearing five weeks and we felt desperate for Prince, frightened, alone, hungry, thirsty. Was he alive?  Kiran called the pyshic to tell her Prince was still lost. A day later, the psychic emailed Angelika and we got the translation in the evening: he is still alive, lost, frightened, and confused. Searching for food a human had thrown a stone at him. (I felt almost ill). She wrote on: ‘He’s showing me an arc or arch, a house with outside stairs leading to the roof, a muddy field, a dirt road,  a broken wall, an old house, a sloping road. It could be on the edge of town. I told him to stay where he is as Maureen and Tim will find you. Don’t move away.’ It was confusing.

The nearest arch, the grand kind soldiers march under, is five miles away. Too far. At dawn, we are out on our hunt. Not far is, not an arch, but a pillar, a possibility. We scour the area but there are no old houses or broken walls nor stairs. Later, we cruise and I spot a metal arch over a school entrance and nearby a broken wall, with a muddy area behind it. We walk all around calling and whistling. Not a response. For five weeks, I’ve been stressed, and cannot work in my worry for him. It sounds hopeless.

In the evening, after our daily walk, we get a SMS on Maureen’s dying phone from a friend, Devika. We’re in a mobile store trying to revive it. The psychic’s mail had been forwarded to Devika, an animal lover. Devika writes that there are some old houses and lanes near the local telephone exchange. That is about a mile away, along very busy, noisy, chaotic roads. It’s a zigzag route too. We drive over, park and see a muddy lane beside the exchange. We walk down it, calling and whistling, the lane curves sharply to a dead end.

But, at the end, is an old house with an outside STAIRCASE leading up to the roof.  We hurry into the muddy compound, calling and whistling. No Prince. The watchmen on the lane, shake their heads when I show them his photograph. When we get back to the road, we stop and stare. Right opposite, there is a splendid ARCH spanning the entrance to an apartment block.

We check with that watchman and an autorickshaw driver. They are helpful but, no, they haven’t seen the dog.

Next to this grand arch entrance is a dark lane about 100 yards long. We walk down, calling, whistling. At the end is an old house, a half broken wall. The watchman there says he hasn’t seen any dog. We walk back up, feeling more depressed, calling and whistling. Parallel to this lane is another dark one, just as long. We turn into it.

I am a few feet ahead, Maureen’s behind. She says: ‘There’s a dog here.’

I turn. There is a bundle of something at her feet. It’s silent; its tail flickers. The light is so bad, it’s only a shape and I bend down. It’s a muddy colour. Prince has a darker coat.   But it looks like him. The dog has a collar and hanging from it is a glitter of metal. I scoop him up. It is PRINCE. His tail now a windshield wiper. It is my happiest moment when he rests his tired head against my shoulder and nuzzles my neck, and then nuzzles Maureen as we hug and kiss him. I know he is as happy to have heard our calls and my whistle.

He had come in from behind us, so it meant he was down that first lane and followed my calls. He had been missing 37 days. Though we’re holding him, we can’t believe we have found him. He looks as dazed, all three thinking we’re dreaming.

  I carry him to the car and when reach home, the word spreads we’ve found him. He is heartbreakingly thin, very dirty and has scars on his forehead and cheek that look like dog bites. He had been in a fight. He had lost two kilograms but someone, somewhere, had given him scraps of food to keep him alive. He drinks a large bowl of water as if he has not had a drink for days.  He is traumatized, still afraid though in his home. The two brothers sniff him suspiciously, and keep their distance. For the five weeks they had a monopoly of our love and attention and now Prince is back home. Fussed over by us all, fed, washed, brushed.

That psychic is unbelievable. How did she see through his eyes?  I cannot explain it or even understand how she does it. I gather she is well known too. She will visit Chennai in January and we will have her over for a grand meal. We have to see how Prince reacts to her in person.

           

ECONOMIST Q&A

Q&A: Timeri Murari

Fair play or foul?

Aug 29th 2012, 21:25 by E.C | LOS ANGELES

IN 2000, the Taliban revised its restrictions on sport in Afghanistan and decided to allow men to participate in cricket. It was an attempt to show the world that they could play fair too. A year later, the Afghan team began competing internationally. Timeri Murari, an Indian author and playwright, spun this historical detail into a bold and uplifting novel about sport and life in a corrupt world.

In “The Taliban Cricket Club” Rukhsana, an enterprising young female journalist who learnt the sport in Delhi, returns to Kabul to teach her male cousins how to play, while disguised as a man to avoid detection. This is a risky undertaking in a society which disapproves of women working or practising sport, but the stakes are high. If they are selected to be national players they will be sent to train in Pakistan, escaping their life under tyranny.

Mr Murari spoke to The Economist about civilian life in Afghanistan and why the Taliban are keen on cricket.

Have you been ruminating on the idea for this book since cricket was reintroduced in Afghanistan a decade ago?

I read this little squiggle of an article in 2000 saying that the Taliban was going to support cricket, which is as strange as you can get, because they virtually banned everything, including kite flying, chess, music, dancing, even clapping in the country. I thought: it’s such an oxymoron. Taliban and cricket are totally in conflict with each other. Essentially, they did it to get some diplomatic acceptance.

I thought about it then but I couldn’t figure out how to write it. Nobody in Afghanistan knew how to play cricket back then. But I grew up playing cricket in our garden in India with my sisters and cousins. And I had a niece who played cricket for India. So, I thought, why not have a woman teach them cricket?

Why did the Taliban allow cricket?

Cricket was ideal for the Taliban. You’re covered completely with clothing and you wear a hat—any other sport would expose the body. Also, there are so many unemployed youths, and it took a long time to complete the match, which kept them occupied for hours.

Soccer actually was played at one point but the men had to wear long-sleeved shirts and trousers to cover themselves. I was also told that during half-time they’d do executions in the stadium.

Do you intend to make a political statement with this book?

Well, I wanted to write a story about a cricket match and I saw the possibility of making a comment on cricket and also this political system. I didn’t set out to try to make a political statement, but it came out in the novel because cricket is a very democratic sport, in great contrast to the Afghan regimen and the Taliban at the time. So, it’s about a conflict between these two.

You visited Afghanistan when researching the novel—what was that experience like?

Yes, I went there in 2010. The first experience I had was in Delhi airport, actually. There was an Afghan man behind me at the check in counter who asked me where I would be staying in Kabul. He said, “Well I have a hotel too but it was bombed two months ago.” But quickly after, he cheered up and said, “No it’s ok. It’ll be open again in a few months.” So, even before I went to Afghanistan, there was a sense of hope that I saw in the people, their ability to overcome disaster.

I met many men and women there who told me their stories. I said to the women that it must be so difficult to wear a burqa. And they said yes, but we feel bad for the men as well. They have to grow a beard, pray five times a day, or they would be beaten. I was surprised that they were so compassionate for the men.

In the book, despite the sadness, oppression and loss, there’s a sense of hope and optimism. Did you see that there?

The Afghans were the most courteous people I’ve ever met. Like under any tyrant, people always have hope and will try to fight back. It’s human nature to fight against oppression. Whether you look at Syria, Libya, the Arab Spring, it all has a common thread. And I could see that people who live under such dictatorships live a life of secret rebellion. You can control someone’s physical body but the tyrant cannot control the mind.

Do you think the media do a good job of reporting on Afghanistan?

A lot of the reporting is about foreign troops and their dangers, with the occasional story on the life of the Afghans. It reminded me of the Vietnam war when we didn’t really know anything about the Vietnamese people. So I had no idea of what it was like for these people. I wanted to write more about the civilians.

Do you feel compelled to go back and write another book about this country?

In fact, yes, I am working on another book that is set in Afghanistan. It’s fiction. Non-fiction can restrict you but fiction allows you to explore your imagination, which you can’t do when you’re reporting.

Afghanistan is in many ways a “heart of darkness”—civilians are being killed from both sides by NATO forces and the Taliban. It is still very important, especially to countries in the region, like India, because whatever happens in Afghanistan over the next few years has significant implications. I want to explore this theme and look at how these people can fight back.

What message do you hope this book will give to readers?

Everyone must try and push justice in the system. The Afghan men and women were doing it through their professions, through sport, and small acts in their daily life. Now we can do so through blogs and the internet. Recently, there was talk of censorship in India on the internet and people began protesting. So even in democratic nations, young people are fighting for justice. It’s a universal story.

The Taliban Cricket Club. By Timeri Murari. Ecco; 336 pages; $24.99. Allen & Unwin; £9.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

 

INCLUDE PARALYMPICS WITH THE OLYMPICS

INCLUDE PARALYMPICS WITH THE OLYMPICS

The London 2012 Olympics was a perfect exercise in national narcissism, as was Beijing before that, and Rio still to come. Nations now use the Olympics as a launch pad for all their ambitions to proclaim they are the mighty nation who can afford to hold (with corporate help of course) these great games. Every opening ceremony has to be more extravagant, more expensive, and more dramatic than the previous city’s opening ceremony. If it isn’t, the games are a failure from the very start. Then we have the closing ceremony, equally flamboyant, equally expensive and the circus moves on to the next city.

But what happens two weeks later? We have the opening ceremony for what is called the Paralympics. I haven’t yet figured out the ‘Para’ bit means. Is it Para-plegic, Para-normal, Para-lysed or Paria-lypmics.  Instead of the Olympics being inclusive of one and all sportspeople, it is exclusive for those who are physically challenged, the “Paras’. Here, the organizers are saying, you go off and have your games now that we have finished the real games. So there’s an opening and closing ceremony for the Paralympics thrown in to make it feel authentic.  

I believe the Olympics should be inclusive of all athletes, Paras or not. It may stretch the Olympics for another week but at least those excluded because of their handicaps will feel part of the full Olympic spirit. They can participate in every event, following on the non-challenged athletes in the disciplines of their sports. After the 100 metre final with Bolt winning in record time, the audience could watch the Paras also complete the 100 metre finals in their record time. So too with swimming, basketball, track and field. They would be seen and acknowledged by a global audience. Right now, once the Olympics are over, the world’s television cameras vanish back to their nations, the sports pages around the world may give the Paralympics a little space but, apart from the host nations boasting of winning more gold medals, the paras are relegated to the background.

In future Olympics, even if possible at Rio, the Paralympics should be included with the main Olympics to make those sportspeople feel that they are acknowledged and not treated as a different species of human beings.

REVIEWS and INTERVIEWS

REVIEWS and INTERVIEWS

Murari’s imagined tale of how a desperate group of Afghans seizes this opportunity to seek their freedom offers insights into the dangers, deprivations, passions, and aspirations of everyday Afghan life. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

I cannot rate The Taliban Cricket Club,  an intriguing and heart warming story of one woman’s fight against oppression in modern day Kabul, highly enough. It should be a word-of-mouth bestseller for both independents and chain stores. BOOKSELLER UK.

…there’s something admirably bold about daring to mix gentle comedy with violent human rights abuse…CURIOUS BOOKS UK

A lovely, diverting and moving tale of contemporary Kabul, about love, courage, passion, tyranny and cricket. Murari has an uncommon tale to tell, and does so with imagination and empathy.- Shashi Tharoor,

… a thrilling climax and atypical story line (one that has roots in real life--the Taliban really did try to put together a cricket team in 2000) make this well worth a read. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY US

So what happens when the Taliban form a propagandist cricket club? It is an intriguing question, which the author explores in this vivid novel set in a war-torn Kabul. THE OBSERVER UK.

A thrilling blend of adventure, romance, and danger, Murari’s novel will have

readers rooting for Rukhsana and the brave team of boys she hopes to guide to victory and freedom. BOOKLIST, US.

Murari finds flashes of humor in unexpected places, such as a scene in which Rukhsana and her grandmother learn to walk in a burka.  Murari has crafted a tense, compelling story. LIBRARY JOURNAL US.

One's attention is held throughout, with a cross-border love story involving an Indian adding to the drama, and the possibility of the triumph of true love impelling one to turn the pages. THE HINDU.

The Taliban Cricket Club is a thrilling tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat to the last. INDIA TODAY.

A compelling novel about cricket in war-torn Kabul, narrated by a young woman who refuses to be silenced by the Taliban. SHELF AWARENESS US

Rukhsana is a female character that refuses to be forgotten, and "The Taliban Cricket Club" is a book that refuses to be ignored. SPENSER REPORT

 National Geographic.

An Opening in Afghanistan

One country that has long fascinated me is Afghanistan. While I’ve never been able to travel there—the closest I’ve gotten was a view of rugged ranges from the Pakistani side of the Khyber Pass—an engaging new novel, The Taliban Cricket Club has just whisked me inside. Written by Indian author, filmmaker, and playwright Timeri N. Murari, the book is set in 2000, a year when the then-ruling Taliban actually did support the creation of a national cricket team. Murari’s imagined tale of how a desperate group of Afghans seizes this opportunity to seek their freedom offers insights into the dangers, deprivations, passions, and aspirations of everyday Afghan life.

BOOKSELLER UK

I cannot rate The Taliban Cricket Club,  an intriguing and heart warming story of one woman’s fight against oppression in modern day Kabul, highly enough. Rukhsana, a courageous young journalist secretly writing anti-government articles, is horrified to discover that she has been selected by the terrifying minister, Wahidi, to be his new wife. Her only way to escape this fate is to get out of the country and such an opportunity arises out of a cricket tournement (which has to be won) and for her to coach a group of boys who have never played before. It should be a word-of-mouth bestseller for both independents and chain stores.

CURIOUS BOOKS

If you lived in a country which was controlled by a brutal regime which restricted the freedom and choices of their citizens, you’d understandably dream of finding a way out. If that regime then decided to try to improve their international image by hosting a cricket tournament to show the world what jolly good chaps they were, promising that the winners would go abroad for coaching, then it might well seem like the answer to your prayers – especially if by good fortune you just happened to be one of the few people in the country who had ever played the game; in fact, you’d played for a university team in India and you really do know your stuff. It would be tempting to see your sporting skills as a great way to escape oppression. You would teach your brother and cousins and a few of their friends how to play and do your best to win. It all sounds very easy. The trouble is that there is of course a twist. This is Afghanistan, the regime is the murderous and humourless Taliban and you – yes you – the cricketing genius who holds the family destiny in your hands are a woman. Welcome to Timeri N. Murari’s novel The Taliban Cricket Club.

Rukhsana is the heroine of our story. After attending university in New Delhi where her father was ‘posted’ she returned to Kabul to work as a journalist until the Taliban made it impossible for women to work. For some unclear reason, she was still on the list of journalists which was used by the ‘Ministry to Promote Virtue and Punish Vice’ when they called the press to the Ministry building to announce their sporting initiative.

Rukhsana is excited about the idea of teaching the men of her family to play the game she loves. She dusts off her old pads, finds her old copy of the rule book and prepares to start training. But how can you demonstrate the finer points of spin bowling whilst draped head to toe in a burkha with only a small mesh panel to look through? She has another problem too. The Minister who’s running the tournament – the violent Zorak Wahidi – wants Rukhsana for his wife and sends his brother and his sister-in-law to demand her hand in marriage. With a terminally ill mother at home, she can’t go into hiding so Rukhsana has two big problems and one classically Shakespearian solution. What would the bard do? Well of course he’d find a false beard and disguise his heroine as a young man. Rukhsana becomes Babur, the cousin from the country.

Can she mould her relatives who’ve never seen a cricket ball or watched a cricket match into a winning team? Will her cousin Shaheen to whom she’s long been engaged but whom she doesn’t love send the money so that she can flee the country, or will the man she really loves rescue her from an arranged marriage? Or in the worst of all possible outcomes, will she have to become one of the Minister’s wives?

“…there’s something admirably bold about daring to mix gentle comedy with violent human rights abuse…”

Sometimes a book comes along that makes you think it’s going to cause quite a stir and could well be set to be one that everyone’s talking about in a few months time. That was my impression when I read The Taliban Cricket Club. It is ‘popular’ fiction rather than ‘literary’ fiction – if you are looking for the next ‘Kite Runner’ then look elsewhere because this isn’t it. If this were set anywhere other than Afghanistan under the Taliban I would classify it as ‘chick lit’ but you just can’t easily imagine cricket or the summary assassinations of innocent people quite slipping into your run-of-the-mill romantic comedy. And that – more or less – is what this book is. It has been described as ‘Bend it Like Beckham in a Burkha’ but I think that does disservice to both the film and the book. This reminds me more of films like ‘Escape to Victory’, the football classic in which prisoners of war in a German camp take on the guards whilst attempting to escape from the prison. As readers we the odds will be stacked against the little men (and woman), we know that fair play will be the last thing on the minds of the authorities, and yet we’ll also get that warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that this has to all work out right in the end but we just don’t know how it’s going to do so.

I’ve read a lot of books set in Afghanistan and they are almost without exception tales of oppression, torture and abuse. This really is something very different. Whilst the plot has plenty of shades of Shakespearean cross-dressing and whilst the whole thing is deliciously predictable, there’s something admirably bold about daring to mix gentle comedy with violent human rights abuse, to combine cricket with killing, and beards with bats. This book will undoubtedly attract readers who wouldn’t read the more typical misery-lit which characterises books about Afghanistan and many of those readers will learn something about life for Afghanis, especially women, under the Taliban. And for me, that’s got to be a good result in a match of any kind.

Few things can be more exciting than finding a great new writer and then realising that he’s not new at all and there are nearly a score of other books for you to track down and read. Timeri N. Murari is an Indian-born writer who has lived and worked in Canada, USA and UK as a journalist, novelist, film producer, playwright and stage director. He’s written for children, young adults, and adults tapping into genres across the spectrum of fiction, fantasy and non-fiction. So how come most of us have never heard of him? Read our Q&A to find out more about Murari and his latest book – The Taliban Cricket Club – then head over to the forum to find out how you can win a copy.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Murari's newest (after Taj) is set in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2000, and tells the harrowing tale of an educated young newspaperwoman during the Taliban's rule, when "Women must be seen only in the home and in the grave." Rukhsana supports her dying widowed mother and teenaged brother by writing stories secreted outside the country and published pseudonymously. But Rukhsana fears her journalistic cover is blown when summoned by Zorak Wahidi, head of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. He wants journalists to promote a cricket tournament in a misguided bid to win diplomatic accolades for the Taliban. Though woman are not allowed to compete, Rukhsana played cricket at college in India, and so disguises herself as a man to coach her brother and cousins in order to get them out of Afghanistan. But when Wahidi asks for Rukhsana's hand in marriage, she must navigate dangerous social territory in an effort to remain free, and stay alive. Murari's storytelling works best when exploring the daily horrors of Taliban rule, a thrilling climax and atypical story line (one that has roots in real life--the Taliban really did try to put together a cricket team in 2000) make this well worth a read. Fans of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns will be especially pleased .

THE OBSERVER

There is no place for any act of violence on the field of play," states preamble No 6 in the Laws of Cricket – an epigraph to this topical novel. So what happens when the Taliban form a propagandist cricket club? It is an intriguing question, which the author explores in this vivid novel set in a war-torn Kabul, where citizens are brutally assassinated and a woman has her finger chopped off for wearing nail varnish. The reader is less bowled over by comedy-drama than stumped by harrowing tragedy.

There is, though, a feisty female protagonist who finds a sense of freedom in sport. in journalist Rukshana, who has written about Taliban abuses and so fears the worst when she is summoned to the "Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice". But the minister in charge has other plans – a cricket tournament, and his intention to marry her. Through her knowledge of cricket, learnt in Delhi, Rukshana sees a means of escape, for the winner will travel internationally. The plot is far-fetched, but the cinematic descriptions of war, and the joy of cricket, score highly.

BOOKLIST US

Set in 2000 in Taliban-controlled Kabul, the latest novel by acclaimed writer and filmmaker Murari (Taj, 2005) follows a group of Afghan boys determined to win a cricket championship and change their lives. The boys have an unusual coach in their cousin, Rukhsana, who studied abroad in Delhi and played on a cricket team. A former journalist now confined to her house by the Taliban, Rukhsana sees the Talibansponsored cricket tournament as a chance for her brother, Jahan, and their cousins to escape Kabul, provided they can win the tournament. Rukhsana herself is waiting for her fiancé, Shaheen, to send money for her to join him in America, even though her heart lies with Veer, a man she met while studying in Delhi. When a sinister Taliban minister decides he wants Rukhsana for his wife, her family puts their lives on the line to protect her. A thrilling blend of adventure, romance, and danger, Murari’s novel will have

readers rooting for Rukhsana and the brave team of boys she hopes to guide to victory and freedom. — Kristine Huntley

Library Journal

When the Taliban's Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice announces that they are sponsoring a cricket tournament, with the winning team receiving training in Pakistan, the brother and cousins of Rukhsana, a female journalist living in Kabul, Afghanistan, see it as their means of escape from the oppressive regime. Disguised as a man, Rukhsana, who learned cricket while at college in India, trains her male relatives. Meanwhile, she plans her own escape via her fiancé in America, a man she doesn't love. VERDICT Fans of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner will here find a similarly uplifting story about good people surviving their horrific circumstances. Murari finds flashes of humor in unexpected places, such as a scene in which Rukhsana and her grandmother learn to walk in a burka.  Murari has crafted a tense, compelling story.—Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis

THE HINDU

“The laws of cricket tell of the English love of compromise between a particular freedom and a general orderliness, or legality” wrote Neville Cardus. The Taliban, not known for any great love of freedom nor of legality, decided in a moment of aberration to promote cricket in Afghanistan and this provides the take-off point for Timeri Murari's latest work of fiction,The Taliban Cricket Club.

Feisty, reckless journalist Rukhsana is under a terrible threat. A powerful Talib leader Wahidi intends to marry her; her wishes in the matter do not count. When the Taliban announces that there will be a cricket tournament and the winners sent to Pakistan for further training, Rukhsana, as one of the few Afghans familiar with the game, decides it is perhaps the only way to escape Wahidi, and get out of the country.

Wearing aburqa, she begins coaching her team of cousins. “Through the mesh, I could barely focus on a bowler, let alone the ball… When I tried to bowl, my right hand became entangled in the flapping garment, I lost sight of Parwaaze, the ball flew over his head.” The reader is treated to a description of the rudiments of cricket, played on a makeshift pitch in war-torn Kabul. It is here that Murari's skills as a writer are evident, because he does not yield to the temptation of waxing lyrical about a graceful ballet of sportsmen on emerald fields nor of displaying his intimate knowledge of the game (his grandfather and father were legendary players in the annals of pre-independence cricket).

“There is no place for any act of violence on the field of play” rules the MCC and the Spirit of the Game is juxtaposed against the wanton brutality of the Taliban regime. “Cricket is theater, it's dance, it's an opera. It's dramatic. It's about individual conflict that takes place on a huge stage. But the two warriors also represent the ten other players; it's a relationship between the one and the many. The individual and the social, the leader and the follower, the individual and the universal.” Cricket becomes a metaphor for everything the Taliban is not.

Murari introduces a third element in the novel, the Shakespearean motif of cross-dressing, flagged by a reference to Shylock. While in his earlier workThe Square Circle(Daayra) both sexual and gender identities were explored through the means of disguise, Murari uses clothing here in a more ironical way for all women under theburqaare interchangeable and unrecognisable.

Rukhsana, chaste and determinedly feminine, becomes Babur and disguise affords her a greater invisibility than that beneath theburqa. Cross-dressing, by men who played women who then played men in Shakespeare's romantic comedies, becomes a means of personal safety and the expression of great courage by Rukhsana who is certain to be summarily shot if discovered.

I must admit to a great resistance, on first seeing the evocative cover photograph by Mustafa Quraishi, to being taken back to the days of capricious violence inflicted on women by the Taliban. Why return there, I wondered, to distress that was unbearable even when felt the first time, say at the execution of Zarmina. However, Murari deftly portrays a heroine who fights against unbeatable odds, in the midst of a totalitarian regime, and wins. By making Rukhsana the personal target of Wahidi, Murari brings us frighteningly close to the Taliban and allows us to participate in the attempt to outwit him.

One's attention is held throughout, with a cross-border love story involving an Indian adding to the drama, and the possibility of the triumph of true love impelling one to turn the pages. Even if there are some coincidences that seem staged, one goes along quite willingly suspending disbelief. In the end, it is love that is celebrated: Romantic, familial and fraternal. Tulsi Badrinath

MSN TODAY

When the Afghan national side played its first ever ODI against a Test-playing country this February, the Taliban joined President Hamid Karzai in sending messages of support for the team. The whole nation was said to be glued to the television, and even though Pakistan won by seven wickets, the Afghan Tigers, as they're known, acquitted themselves more than respectably.

The story of the rise of Afghan cricket merits not one but many novels. In five years, with poor facilities, they climbed from the fifth to the first division of the World Cricket League and were ranked ninth in International Twenty20. In a three-day match in April, they defeated the Netherlands with an unbeaten 84 scored by 18-year-old Afsar Zalzal, clinching the match. Later this year, their Under-19s will take on India's in Brisbane.

Historically, the story of Afghan cricket begins in the refugee camps in Pakistan after the Russian invasion of 1979, where boys joined local kids playing the game. Here one young man, Taj Malik, the father of Afghan cricket, was dreaming of an Afghan team.

In The Taliban Cricket Club, Timeri N. Murari has taken inspiration not from Malik but from Soviet-period sporting news, and the Taliban's strange decision to give limited approval to cricket. Murari then leaps into pure fiction by making his central character, an Afghan cricket guru, a woman journalist who learned her sport during her college days in Delhi. There is a touch of Elizabeth from Lagaan (woman teaching cricket-ignorant men, with a lot at stake), and Rani Mukherjee from Dil Bole Hadippa! (false beard and male impersonation) about Ruksana.

Still Murari knows how to pace his tale and create credible characters. Ruksana with her courage and liveliness is attractive, and her terror of the Taliban is convincing. Brought up in liberal times before the Taliban conquered Kabul, through her experience the author paints a stark picture of the Taliban takeover with its violence, oppression and toll on human values. The Taliban are portrayed as monsters rather than men, until their unexpected approval of cricket gives the glimmer of hope that forms the core of the suspense and the high drama of this novel.

Murari also leaves space for human warmth, loyalty and romance, but above all, The Taliban Cricket Club is a thrilling tale that keeps you on the edge of your seat to the last. GILLIAN WRIGHT.

SHELF AWARENESS

Although the Taliban are well known for violence and intimidation, few people are aware of their brief flirtation with cricket. Many Afghans were baffled when the regime lifted its own ban on sports in 2000, promoting cricket in a bid for international political acceptance.

Timeri N. Murari (Taj, My Temporary Son) spins a compelling fictional narrative around this odd fact, telling the story through the eyes of Rukhsana, an outspoken journalist who fell in love both with cricket and an Indian man in Delhi. Furious at the Taliban's growing oppression of journalists and worried about her mother's declining health, Rukhsana disguises herself as a young man to teach her brother and cousins to play cricket. If they win the national tournament, they can escape to Pakistan, and Rukhsana can avoid a forced marriage to a Taliban official.

Murari endows Rukhsana with his own love of the game, explaining that it represents freedom, individual responsibility, the ability to be creative--all principles the Taliban longs to crush. He tenderly portrays the bonds between an ill mother and her children, and the tightly knit team of cousins who rally around Rukhsana. While most of the book takes place in Rukhsana's home and on the cricket fields, the Taliban and their reign of terror lurk in the background--a constant, menacing shadow.

A love letter to cricket and to Kabul,The Taliban Cricket Club dares to imagine a different Afghanistan, where a simple game could bring about fair play, peace and a measure of freedom for all. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger atCakes,Teaand Dreams

Discover: A compelling novel about cricket in war-torn Kabul, narrated by a young woman who refuses to be silenced by the Taliban.

Spencer Daily Reporter US

In 2000, the Taliban decided to adopt cricket as a national sport. Until this time, athletics of any sort were illegal, as they promoted celebration and rebellion. But appealing to the international cricket community, they hoped, would help them to gain acceptance from the rest of the world.

This story is the basis for Timeri Murari's latest novel, "The Taliban Cricket Club." Rukhsana is a fiery young journalist who has been forced into the shadows because she is a woman. So, she writes under a pseudonym, and faxes them a trusted contact.

And yet, even though she has taken every precaution to keep her identity under wraps, she is still summoned by Zorak Wahidi, the Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, to appear before the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. She is not told why her presence is requested.

Rukhsana lives in Kabul, a once-beautiful city that, like its occupants, has wasted away under the rule of the Taliban:

The city, as fragile as any human, was gaunt with sickness; its blackened ribs jutted out at odd angles, craters of sores pitted its skin, and girders lay twisted like broken bones in the streets. Its gangrenous breath smelled of explosives, smoke, and despair. Even mosques were not spared the savagery, their skulls explosively opened to the sky.

Once she is gathered with the other area journalists, Minister Wahidi makes his proclamation: Afghanistan has applied to the International Cricket Council for membership, to show themselves as a fair and just people:

"Cricket will show all those against us that we too can be sportsmen. As our young men have much time to spare, we wish to occupy them to prevent any vices."

Because cricket, and all sports, have been banned for so long, none of the local men know how to play. A woman certainly would not be allowed to play regardless. But Rukhsana knows how to play and her cousins do not. So she must teach them, and she must do so without being caught.

"The Taliban Cricket Club" takes a few pages to get into, but before long Rukhsana shines through and the story takes over. What's most captivating is to think that, even though the book is a work of fiction, the over-arching plot line did truly exist.

Rukhsana is rebellious and gutsy. She will not be one to cave into submission just because of her sex. Her game of cricket is one of elegance and individuality, a game that she herself embodies.

As the story progresses, we see into her memory and into the experiences that have shaped her. She is her own woman, one who exemplifies the strength in quiet protest.

Rukhsana is a female character that refuses to be forgotten, and "The Taliban Cricket Club" is a book that refuses to be ignored.

INTERVIEWS.

THE TELEGRAPH, KOLKOTA

Though I have come home, it is not quite home’

Novelist, filmmaker and journalist Timeri Murari has been writing for four decades. But the Chennai-based author, who returned to India after years abroad, tells Kavita Shanmugam that you need to read to be able to write

Consider this. He’s an acclaimed Indian English author and an illustrious journalist. He has been writing for 40 years and has penned 18 fiction and non-fiction books, including a period bestseller Taj. He has directed a play in England with Bend It Like Beckham actress Parminder Nagra. A documentary filmmaker, he also wrote and produced an internationally hailed film The Square Circle, made in Hindi by Amol Palekar as Daayra. Yet Timeri Murari — the Chennai-based writer who lived for 30 years in England and the US — is seldom to be seen in India’s literary circles or festivals. In a fast developing publishing world where every pretty young thing or geeky graduate is writing a book, Murari — an R.K. Narayan award winner (given by the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India) — is a name that only the cognoscenti seem to be acquainted with. “It’s simple really why I am not spotted on the national literary scene. I am not invited,” says the spiffily-attired, 70-year-old scribe, clearly not unduly fussed about his isolation. “What can I say? It is all Delhi and Mumbai centric,” he says in his clipped, British accent. It is the festivals’ loss, for the writer with his inimitable and flawless style has notched up a rich oeuvre. Starting off on a novel set amidst Punjabi immigrants in the UK, he whisked up a mystery novel and then went on to make his mark with his historical fiction, Taj. From doffing a gentleman’s hat at Emperor Shah Jahan’s deep love for his wife, he portrayed the poignant, slow disintegration of a south Indian joint family in one of his best books, his semi-autobiographical Four Steps to Paradise. Or take his travelogue, Limping to the Centre of the Earth, on an “atheist’s” pilgrimage to Mount Kailash for the sake of an orphan. His latest fiction Taliban Cricket Club, which recently hit the bookstores, traces the daring escape of a spirited Afghan woman journalist from intolerant Talibans. Murari is happy with the enthusiastic response that the book has evoked in the US. Seated in a visitors’ room surrounded by paintings, artefacts and a long, walled bookshelf in his one-storey ancestral home, he talks about the feedback. “My editor in New York says this is the first time any of her books has been reviewed by National Geographic,” he says. The irrepressible author, who sticks to his discipline of writing every day from 7.30am to 1pm, has also moved on to his next novel — set in Afghanistan once again. What is his fascination for Afghanistan? “Afghanistan is our neighbour. Whatever happens there is bound to reverberate on us. In the last few years, the Taliban’s importance is growing. If Afghanistan goes to the Taliban, the al Qaeda will be at our doors,” points out this former journalist who has written for The Guardian and The Sunday Times, London. “The Afghanis are extremely courteous and friendly people. How can one help them? The country is a powder keg,” he says, spreading his hands helplessly. Murari, who covered the Indian elections during the Rajiv Gandhi era for a prominent political magazine, has always straddled journalism and fiction writing. It was while writing a piece for the The Sunday Times on union problems among Indian immigrant textile mill workers in Coventry that his first novel was born. “The article got stuck because of legal problems and I had all this research material. So I decided to fictionalise it,” he recounts. This immigrant tale titled The Marriage revolved around an Indian girl falling in love with a British boy. Murari has had no formal training in writing. He was studying engineering in London when he decided to move to McGill University in Canada to study political science and history. While studying there he wrote a piece for a Canadian newspaper on a summer logging experience. That was the beginning of his career in journalism, though he moved soon to England where he joined The Guardian. “Writers are born,” says Murari, citing his example of not having gone to creative writing school. However, he emphasises the importance of reading. “You have to read many, many writers before you work out your own style.” He laughs when I ask him about the “mini-explosion” of Indian English writers on the publishing landscape. “It is like my editor says, every person has a short story inside them, not a novel. What we are seeing today is short stories being stretched into novels.” The constant “churning” in the publishing world with new technological developments such as e-books and Kindle makes it difficult to predict the future of this field, he says. “Everyone thinks they can write. But it is hard. What most people don’t do is read the great writers. You can only learn from reading the best writers out there,” he says, reeling off names from his list of the best — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Graham Greene, Raymond Chandler, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow and so on. Murari, who was born in an illustrious Telugu Naidu family in Chennai (his grandfather’s friends included powerful politicians such as K. Kamaraj), was circled by books as a child. Parts of his childhood figure in Four Steps to Paradise — a novel that he is particularly fond of, as is his Australian wife Maureen. It tells the story from the eyes of a young boy, Krishna, of how an outsider, a European woman, breaks up a family. “It is biographical in parts,” admits Murari, whose father — a civil servant in the Madras Presidency — married a foreigner after his mother’s death. “This novel is full of depth and strength probably since it is set in my own past,” he reflects. “Did not Hemingway say that writers should stick to writing what they know? It might be good advice but writers also need to write about things they don’t know and should learn from,” he adds. His more recent book, Limping to the Centre of the Earth, was one such adventure. The book emerged out of a story. Murari’s wife was caring for an abandoned sick baby who needed an operation which was very risky. “People told me that if I went to Mount Kailash and made a wish, it would come true and I wanted to do it for the child,” says Murari, who made the journey despite a weak knee. Though not superstitious, he adds that the little baby survived. Now adopted, his photograph adorns a table in the room. Murari loved his journey to Mount Kailash in Tibet. “It is special; it’s not just an unusual looking mountain. You feel awed standing before it because of its history and age. It dates back to mythology, to the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. I loved the solitude and getting up to 18,000 feet and coming back alive,” he says with a laugh. If you probe his lack of belief in God, he says, “I prefer to think nature is God.” He scoffs at the Large Hadron Collider’s claim of being closer to locating God’s particle. “The closer they get to it the farther it will move away. The mystery of the universe is such that nobody can solve it.” Cricket, which plays a huge role in Taliban Cricket club, is a big passion. Having learnt cricket in what was Chennai from his grandfather and father, Murari later played with the likes of British playwrights Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard and American writer James Baldwin when he lived in New York. Baldwin, in fact, once advised him against taking up the onerous task of becoming a full-time writer. But Murari wrote, even while he focused on making documentaries. It was while shooting a documentary on detectives in South Bronx in New York (“cops are wonderful storytellers”) that he got the grist for a mystery novel, Shooters. New York was also where he married Maureen. You can tell that Murari was a handsome man in his younger days. Even now, tall and distinguished looking with a receding hairline, dark bushy eyebrows and lively black eyes, he is quite a force to reckon with. But Murari stressed that he got “tired” of the US. Along with Maureen, he returned to India in 1988 to become a part of “changing” India. “I wanted to write about India with authority by living here rather than as a tourist,” Murari says, adding that his father’s failing health also prompted him to return. Murari admits that it has not been an easy transition to live in “exciting but exacerbating India” after living away for 30 years. “I don’t regret it. Sometimes, I feel restless, dislocated. Though I have come home, it is not quite home,” he says quoting Tom Wolfe: “You can never return, you can never go home.” CURIOUS BOOKS INTERVIEW

CB. How did you learn about the Taliban’s interest in using cricket for propaganda purpose and could you tell us about how the seed of an idea grew into The Taliban Cricket Club?

TNM. Way back in 2000, I read a very brief report in the newspaper that the Taliban announced they would promote cricket in Afghanistan and the regime, backed by the Pakistan Cricket Board, would apply for associate membership to the International Cricket Council. I thought the item surreal – Taliban? Cricket? They were contradictory, an oxymoron.  The regime had banned everything – including chess – and this was a diplomatic way for acceptance in a world that condemned their brutal rule. The idea nagged at me and I made a few notes on how I could use this for a story. I thought I’d throw in a tournament and that the winning team would be sent out of the country – all expenses paid – and never return. Great! But as no one knew how to play cricket back then in Afghanistan who’s going to teach my team of young men? A pro from England/India/Pakistan – it didn’t have any dimensions. I set the idea aside and went back to my other work when the Taliban were driven out by ISAF. When they ‘returned’ to fight ISAF, I pulled out my notes to re-think. I grew up playing cricket with my sisters and female cousins in our garden and even had a niece who played for India. So, why not a young Afghan woman who learned her cricket in India, returns to Kabul when the Taliban announce this and have her teach her cousins how to play this game? Through her I could explore the plight of women under the Taliban rule and have my cricket team as well.

CB. Do you have any personal experience of life in Afghanistan under the Taliban and if not, how did you research your characters? Did you have a friend or relative in mind as your mental ‘model’ for Rukhsana?

TNM. No, thankfully I didn’t have any personal experience living under the Taliban. I wouldn’t have lasted long as I’m not Muslim and most non-Muslims fled the country back then. First, I read all I could, books and website, on stories of life under the Taliban. In Delhi, I met a few Afghan refugees who told me their stories too. Then I went to Afghanistan and met men and women (working in offices beside men) who had lived under the Taliban and they told me what daily life was like in those years. I incorporated many of their stories and incidents into the novel.  Surprisingly, the women had more sympathy for the men as the men had to grow beards and pray five times a day, otherwise they were beaten. The women told me life under the burka was hard, restricting their lives but they learned to survive. What worries them today is the fear that the Taliban will return and send the women back into those dark ages. I had sketched out the inner life of Rukhsana before I went to Afghanistan but didn’t have a complete image of her. Then when I was in Kabul airport going to through immigration I saw my Rukhsana – a woman in her 20s, lively, animated, talking to her friends, laughing easily. Now and then she’d frown and listen before reacting. And she had a ‘C’ curl of hair that fell across her forehead. She was also quite beautiful but unaware of her beauty. I watched her for ten minutes and then she was gone.

CB. Books set in Afghanistan are almost all unremittingly miserable. How does it feel to have perhaps written the first book about the life under the Taliban that doesn’t need to be sold with a large box of Kleenex?

TNM. I am delighted that Kleenex has lost a possible market. I wanted to show that under every tyranny, people did fight against the tyrants in many ways, some violently, others more cleverly. At the same time they have to lead ‘normal’ lives. We try to snatch joy and love under the most cruel circumstances in our need to survive and keep our sanity. The Afghans are, without doubt, the most hospitable, courteous people I’ve met. Despite the tragedies in their lives, they still retain a sense of humour and a joy for life which I’ve tried to capture in my novel.

CB. Your average British woman has a pretty low level of interest in cricket – your average American or Canadian even less so (Cricket? That’s like a grasshopper, right?) Was your book written with the Indian market in mind? Did you make any changes to the text to appeal more to readers who aren’t so cricket-savvy?

TNM. I didn’t write it with anyone in mind. Since, I enjoyed writing it, I thought there’ll be a few people out there who could enjoy reading it too. I was very surprised that my New York agent first loved the book, without saying ‘cricket! No one will read this?’ She sent it out New York publishers and the bigger surprise was that five responded, wanting to buy the novel. Ecco bought it and the editor, Lee, called me and we talked for an hour and she barely mentioned the word ‘cricket’.  But yes, I had to cut back on the technical terms – leg slips, silly point, leg breaks - I used in the first draft as she didn’t understand their meanings. As I’ve played cricket nearly all my life, mostly in England for the Guardian newspaper team, the hardest work was simplifying the game for readers who had never seen a cricket match and thought cricket was an insect. India bought the novel only after the French, Dutch and Norwegian publishers, none of whom, I suspect, have ever seen a game of cricket!

CB. I suspect many readers will assume you are a woman, probably 20-30 years younger than you actually are – yes, I checked you out on Facebook! Is that stereotyping a good thing or a bad thing and are you amused or insulted by the inevitable mistakes?

I’m more amused. Writers are slotted into comfortable genres – thriller, crime, romance, historical, literary (whatever that means) and are expected, like prisoners, to remain in their allotted cells. The first question I’ve been asked is ‘how could you write this as a first person woman narrator?’ I had written a previous novel, ‘Lovers Are not People’ with a first person woman narrator and that did extremely well, with no questions asked. On this one, I had a mail from a woman in Texas who saw the book in Barnes & Nobel, was intrigued by the title and the story line but said she hesitated to buy it when she saw it was written by a man. Her letter was very flattering as she completely believed Rukhsana’s voice. 

CB. Is there any future for Rukhsana and her friends and family once the book ends? Where do you see them today, a decade after the events are set?

TNM. For Rukhsana, yes, there is a more stable future – a married life, happily I believe – and she returns to spend time in Afghanistan to write about it for a newspaper. By now, she has a couple of kids and is settled in New Delhi. Her brother Jahan, after his degree from Delhi University, is now in America, probably working on his masters or even working for NASA as that was his ambition. The cousins’ future could be darker. They were trying to get to Australia by paying a smuggler to get them there. The journey was hard and dangerous but they make it, are imprisoned by Australian immigration, appeal to the courts and, after a year, are finally allowed to settle in the country. They worked and studied in the evenings for their degrees, remaining close knit and supporting each other and now are happily settled down in their careers. They are the lucky ones – today hundreds of young Afghan men, more boys, walk all the way to Europe looking for work.

Excerpt THE TALIBAN CRICKET CLUB

MY NEW NOVEL PUBLISHED MAY 2012. READ THE EXCERPT/QUOTES

“No one could be—” I stopped when I saw the Land Cruiser race into the courtyard in front of us. “Oh god.”

In the back lay a man and a woman, their arms and legs bound. The woman wore her burka; the man had a sack over his head. Two Talibs, along with two police officers who had guns, stood above them. The vehicle stopped, the Talibs jumped down and pushed their prisoners out onto the ground as if they were sacks of grain. When they fell we heard their muffled cries.

The minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, Zorak Wahidi, the man who had summoned us here, stepped out of the passenger seat and walked slowly back to the fallen couple. I felt a shudder of recognition. His beard was whiter since I’d last seen him four years ago. There was a stoop to his shoulders, as if a thousand dead souls pressed down on him. He wore a black shalwar, a black lungee, and new black sandals. He also carried a pistol and looked down at the prisoners, and then across to us. I wanted to shield Jahan from what was about to happen but he had moved to stand between Parwaaze and Qubad and watched with the fascination of any teenager. He had never witnessed an execution before— mother had forbidden him to accompany me and Parwaaze last November when Zarmina was executed. “Look away, look away,” I whispered, but he didn’t hear me. Wahidi pointed the pistol down toward the man and shot him in the head. The man appeared to rise briefly before falling back. Wahidi moved to the crying woman and shot her in the head too. The shots sounded flat and harmless in the empty space surrounding us. He walked toward us holding his pistol, as casually as a man crossing a drawing room to greet his guests. The two Talibs,  and the policemen followed him. He turned to give them an order, and then turned back to us.

“Do you know why they were executed?” We remained silent. I felt his eyes penetrating my veil, trying to remember the face he could not see. He angrily answered his own question. “They were traitors to the Islamic Emirate  of Afghanistan. They were committing adultery, which is against our laws, and they deserved to die. We will not tolerate such vices. The press too . . .” Here he paused and surveyed us, noting each one present, focusing  again on me. “. . . are responsible for projecting in the foreign media a very bad image of our legitimate government.” He paced in front of us, and shouted, his face snarling in fury. “From here on out, you will write exactly what I tell you.” The men took out their notebooks like obedient schoolboys . I hadn’t brought one.

“The ruling council of the Islamic Emirate  of Afghanistan, and I, have decided to show the world that we’re a fair and just people. To that end, our government has decided to promote cricket in Afghanistan. We have applied to the International Cricket Council for membership.”

Like the others, I raised my head in surprise.

“We wait to hear from them on this. The Pakistan Cricket Board will support our application. Cricket will show all those against us that we too can be sportsmen. As our young men have much time to spare, we wish to occupy them to prevent any vices. We banned cricket because it was a legacy of the evil British. But we studied all sports and cricket is modest in its clothing. The uniform covers the player from his neck to his feet and covers his head as well. Therefore, we will encourage the sport, strictly according to Islamic rules of dress, and we will hold a tournament in three weeks. We will welcome an official from the International Cricket Council to observe the matches and know that we are genuine in our interest in promoting the sport, openly and fairly. The tournament is open to all Afghans and we will send the winning team to Pakistan to perfect their playing skills. They will return to teach other young men to play this sport. Women, of course, will not be permitted to play.” He ended the announcement and dismissed us.

“What do you think?” I asked Yasir.

“I write what they tell me, and I do not think. But let’s see how many Afghans turn up for the matches when they read about this. A free pass to leave the country—I wonder how many will return. Are you going to write this up?”

“Yasir—I don’t write anymore.”

When I moved to leave with the others, the two policemen grabbed me. Jahan tried to stop them but one Talib hit him in the stomach with his gun butt. Yasir moved to help, but the second Talib pointed his gun at Yasir’s chest. I struggled, trying to get a last glimpse of Jahan, but the men dragged me out of the courtyard and into a small, bare room and forced me to kneel. They pressed their gun barrels down on my shoulders so I could not move. We waited in oppressive silence. Finally, I sensed someone entering the room. I couldn’t see through the mesh and tried to lift my head, but a hand pressed it back down to supplication. I smelled perfume, a cloying, sweet odor. I glimpsed dusty feet slyly circling me, and then he and his cologne walked out of the door. Minutes later, Wahidi walked into the room in his black sandals. I heard the rustle of a paper, and he held a newspaper before my eyes. The English headline read “Taliban Execute Mother of Five Children.” It was my story and I felt my heart miss a beat, then another. This was why I had been summoned here and he was about to kill me. But I also knew he had no proof I had written it—it was filed under my pseudonym. He is only trying to frighten you, I told myself, and tried to stay calm. I did not speak; thankfully I wasn’t expected to. He crushed the paper deliberately into a small ball and dropped it on the floor. Then he lowered a pistol to my line of vision, and I smelled cigarette smoke. Through the mesh, I saw his finger around the trigger, the gun like a natural extension of his hand. Its black barrel was worn gray, the butt chipped along the edges. His finger curled and uncurled as if it had a mind of its own, and was thinking over a decision. The finger was surprisingly long, almost delicate, and manicured. Then the hand lifted the gun out of my small window of vision; it was somewhere above my head. I shut my eyes and waited. I tried prayers, but I couldn’t form the words or sentences that would accompany me into the next life. I opened my eyes when the cigarette’s smoke stung my nostrils. The cigarette lay on the floor, a serpent of smoke curling up. The ball of paper began to burn. He let it come to a small flame then crushed it with his sandal. He lowered to squat in front of me, his eyes almost level with mine. I shut mine tight and yet I felt his eyes piercing the mesh, as if searching the contours of my face. Then, with a decisive grunt, he stood up. The police lifted the gun barrels off my shoulders and followed him out.

I remained kneeling, waiting to open my eyes until I heard no further movement. The door was partially open and I was free to leave. Involuntarily, I laughed in relief. I struggled to stand, my foot caught in the edge of the burka, and I fell. I stood up, swaying, and moved to the door. I stepped out into an empty corridor. To my left, men were loading the executed couple into the back of an old Land Cruiser. For once, I was thankful for the burka. I had wet myself. My legs were rubbery and I leaned against the wall for strength. I moved cautiously out of the building, back into sunlight. Yasir waited by the entrance, while Jahan, Parwaaze, and Qubad were sitting on the low wall, across the street, along the river. They jumped up and hurried over when they saw me. I was more concerned for the abuse Jahan had suffered, and though he walked carefully, he appeared to be all right. He lifted his arms to embrace me but dropped them quickly in embarrassment, looking around to see if such an intimate gesture was noticed by the religious police. When Yasir saw my companions, he said, “Be careful,” and hurried away.

“Are you okay?” they chorused.

“Yes. Jahan, are you all right?”

“Just a stomachache. It’ll pass.”

“We didn’t think we’d see you again,” Parwaaze said, leading us away, our feet leaden on the broken pavement. “Did they hurt you?” he asked me, checking back over his shoulder.

“No, and they didn’t say a word.”

“Then why did they take you inside? What did they want?”

“I don’t know. Wahidi came into the room, smoked a cigarette, and left.” I didn’t mention the gun barrels on my shoulders, the article, or the pistol. I was frightened and I didn’t want to frighten them more.

“I didn’t want you to see . . . that,” I said to Jahan.

He was almost in tears, as he was remembering the impact of the bullets. “I didn’t want to watch, but it was so sudden and I couldn’t move my eyes, I couldn’t even shut them.

“It’s better to cry for them than just look away.” I looked at the other two. They too had moist eyes, flickering with horror at what they had witnessed, and their faces were a shade paler. “Are you both okay?” I asked them, wishing I could take back everything they had seen.

“Another execution. How many more will I see before I can get out of this country?” Parwaaze asked aloud.

“Rukhsana, next time we’ll be carrying out your co-corpse,” Qubad said, “You must leave Kabul. Go to Shaheen, he’s waiting for you in America. He was lucky to get out.”

“I can’t—there’s just no way. I’m not going to leave Maadar while . . .” I didn’t want Mother to die. Somehow, I had to survive and see my mother through her illness, and then escape. I prayed hard. “Please let me make it safely through Maadar’s death and I will leave an instant later. Please protect me until then—just a little more time before I join my bethrothed.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Jahan said.

We hurried toward home. My shoulders still burned from the gun barrels and I felt Wahidi’s breath on my face. Why had he called me? Was he setting a trap to see if I’d report today’s executions and write about the cricket announcement? If he was certain I’d written those other stories, I wouldn’t be walking home. I’d be in prison.

In my preocupation, I wasn’t listening to the boys until Parwaaze’s excited voice broke through my thoughts.

“. . . in three weeks and the winning team will go to Pakistan,” he said. “We get out if we win that match . . . go to Australia . . .  America . . . to university . . . finish our studies . . . work . . . wasting our lives here . . .”

“Then we’ll have to come back here to teach the others,” Jahan said.

“I’ll keep going and going,” Parwaaze said.

“But we have one small pr-problem with that brilliant idea,” Qubad said.

“We don’t know how to play cricket,” Parwaaze admitted, crestfallen.

“We don’t,” Jahan said. “But Rukhsana does.”

Love our politicians

I absolutely love our politicians. I have to fall in worship and awe of their egos.
Who else but an Indian politician, a chief minister at that and therefore all-powerful, would build a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, statue of herself in a cathedral-like building that dwarfs the Chartres cathedral.
Of course Mayawati meant this monument to hers dalit self (and two dalit men standing behind her) to be a place of worship. It cost the state’s exchequer a mere 680 crore rupees. One moment while I convert that to US dollars – another mere 151 million USD, I think.
I’ve only seen the photographs of this Mayawati basilica. She stands in front of her edifice and just about reaches her own stone ankle. What I really love too is that her gigantic alter ego carries a huge handbag. It’s hard to get a perspective from a photograph but she looks, in real life, as the same height as her stone bag. What does she, in real life again, carry in this trademark handbag? Money? She needs cash to pay for the auto rickshaw, buy flowers from the roadside seller, a cup of chai too, and to tip the waiter in a dhabba. Or does it hold her makeup kit? Lipstick, powder, rouge, perfume, a comb?
Politicians never carry anything, their chamchas do. Indira didn’t, Sonia and Jayalalithaa don’t carry bags. They have black cats to do that. Besides, politicians never ever need to carry money. It’s a given that they’re LOADED with it, either in India or elsewhere. So why her handbag and what is in it, to return to my puzzlement? To prove her femininity, probably.
We love our statues of our politicians. They sprout, like some deity, in every street corner, square, maidan, traffic roundabout. They’re religious garlanded on their birth and death anniversaries, riots break out if they’re forgotten. At least for Mohandas Gandhi, the statues of him were built, and scattered like confetti all over India, long after he was dead. Now, being dead and statues after is out of fashion. They’re erected while the ‘great’ person is still alive so he or she can garland it, and admire it, while they’re still alive.
Mayawati should read Percy Byshee Shelley’s poem, Ozymandis:
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".