This article is published in number 36 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until 7 September 2021
“Closed today” says “Khanagi” on the TripAdvisor page of a cafe in Kabul. The latest reviews date back to 2017. One says: “We went back every day for breakfast until we left Kabul.” The menu features traditional Afghan food – Nargis Kebab, for example: a kebab named after the Narcissus flower and has a chicken egg in the center.
I did a very stupid search on the Net, and I did it after I came across a sentence from the Indian journalist Taran Khan. On the daily life of the Afghan capital, which he visited several times between 2006 and 2014, he wrote a book, Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul. «Along with all the wounds that the war has left, “Khan writes,” there are also visions of happiness, banality, routine: all the nuances you expect to see in a city you know. We tend to forget this when we imagine Kabul as a distant and relentless place of violence“. There was a time, not even so remote, when women were on the street, you could visit museums, art galleries, gardens, and there were people in the cafes.
Now it is once again a place of distant and relentless violence. Daily life – I read in a New York Times report – is a struggle to survive. Market prices are rising, except for fruit, which is difficult to export at this time. The banks are closed, it is difficult to find gas. The workers walk around the city in search of work, but find nothing. In many areas, stillness reigns, a threatening and anguished stillness. Senin, a university student, says the Taliban prevented her from going to class. His brothers, who worked with the American forces, were evacuated. The situation is unbearable. “All my dreams have been lost,” says Senin.
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