A Time Of War

This is a story that reflects the tragedy of war, the death of innocence and hope. It is the story of Farrouk Ali, an Afghani Refugee, who is an orphan and lives in the war torn city of Kabul. He is all of 15 years, young, fair, tall but his haunted green eyes tell a story of lost innocence, childhood and love. In the camp, where he struggles to live, there are many children like him and over the years he has become brother to some of them especially the ones who are older and tell stories of the raging war around the campfires at night. Farrouk is fascinated by the war and wants to be a part of it without understanding the consequences.

One day an old lady in a burkha and an old man came to live in the Camp. They had nothing of value except for their loom machine and some carpets which were always rolled and hidden from prying eyes, as if the old couple feared that opening them would lessen their value. The old Amma, as everybody called her, developed a fond liking for Farrouk and one day when the old man Maqbool was away, she unveiled the carpets before his young eyes. Farrouk was dumbstruck by the beauty of what he was seeing. Perfect geometrical colours, dazzling hues of blue intertwined with gold, swirling pinks, reds dissolving into one another. He felt as if he had been transported to another world altogether, a world of fantasy and emotions unfelt before. He went down on his knees and begged Amma to teach him how to weave carpets. She told him that it was Maqbool who would be the right man to teach him on the loom and that she would speak to him tonight. Farrouk could not sleep that night eagerly awaiting his first lesson the carpet weaving loom.

As the next day dawned, Farrouk could, as always, hear the sound of bombs blasting in the distance and spats of gunfire coming from all directions. He always stopped a moment to ponder about what the war was all about and how his life could have been without it. These moments sometimes turned into minutes, minutes into hours. Time seemed to stand still until someone sent his head reeling with a resounding slap and a short bark to fetch some water from the nearby well. But not today. Today nothing deterred him for rushing into Maqbool’s tent and bowing before him. Farrouk couldn’t say much apart from the words, “Maqbool Miyan will you teach me, please.” A wry smile played on Maqbool’s lips as he agreed to have Farrouk as his pupil on the condition that he would stay away from the older kids and the war that seemed to be raging endlessly. Farrouk gave Maqbool his word and started his first lessons in thread. Already Farrouk could explain his war torn world through colours, he said, “'White is for the shroud they wrapped my father's body in and black is for the night that cloaks us from enemy eyes. Green is the color of life. Blue is the sky. One day it will all be free of enemy jets.” The leaden skies and mud-colored walls of the camp contrasted eerily with the bright colors of the carpet taking shape in front of him on the loom.

At the campfire, while he was dreaming of his colours, two elder boys came and sat next to him and started telling stories of the war and heroes and how common people became heroes and died ultimately embracing the doors of heaven. They urged him to join a training camp for young soldiers, held outside Kabul and become a part of a suicide squad that was any day better than his existence at the camp. They fed him heroic stories of how young suicide bombers could pass police checks and enter the enemy camps and bow themselves along with scores of the enemy’s soldiers. For the orphaned Afghan this way of life was attractive and made him feel like a man instead of a helpless boy. He promised them that he would join them for training at dawn the next day.

That night when he couldn’t sleep, he imagined the different colors of the carpet flowing from his hand but always turning crimson red when he finished. The colour of blood distressed him and he decided that he would surely fight a war but through his weaving skills.
Next morning after entering Maqbools tent, he just sat down and started working on the threads to make the colours of Afghanistan on the carpet loom. By the evening his fingers were sore but five proud flags fluttered on each corner of the camp. Ali decided to depict war through his carpet weaving skills and made many heart touching portrayals of the war and its ugly consequences. Ali was not afraid of depicting the dead soldiers and their lost lives but would create effect that each young one lost had a family who will be helpless without him and spend the rest of their lives grieving. Very soon his carpets became the topic of the camp, his ability to depict stark reality made many youngsters choose the way of school or hardship rather than a unsung death of a soldier, lying in the mountains without a proper burial.

By now his fame had spread to all corners of Afghanistan and reached the ears of a missionary lady from Calcutta. She decided to visit Ali and see for herself, whether Ali’s talent was indeed as good as it was told. One visit to his camp shack, she realized that this talent would go wasted if support and the right environment were not given to this young lad of the mountains.

She went back and wrote a letter home to her church describing what she had heard and seen. Within a week a Muslim Family sent a proposal to adopt Ali and bring him to India and nurture his talent.

When Ali heard this news he started to cry he remembered the times when the bucket handle cut into his hand, the rough mats that rubbed his ankles raw and his nightmares of enemy jets screaming overhead. An Afghani boy living in a mud-drenched refugee camp and measuring his life by the next trip to the well or finding the next piece of bread suddenly woke up to the fact that from now on with his fingers he will create a world the war and the bombs cannot touch his life.
Ali left for India with his adopted parents and began a new life of carpet expressions and the last I heard that Ali lives in a nice house in Agra has two lovely children and his own successful carpet Gallery on the main Agra bazaar. Some say his son at the age of five is already showing talent for carpet weaving skills.