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CONTROVERSY: AFGHANISTAN MEMOIRS
On Hostile Tract
Tales of Taliban barbarism by an Afghan's Bengali wife
become a bestseller and is now being filmed
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CREATIVE AGONY: Bandopadhyay and her husband Khan fear that
the film based on her book (left below) may lead to reprisals against
his family in Afghanistan
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During wars, walls
have ears. However, in the post-Soviet years in Afghanistan, when Pakistan
and the indigenous Taliban were wresting control of the country from a
more civil regime, the world outside had little idea of what the concoction
of feudalism and fundamentalism meant to ordinary lives.
These shifts in human attitudes aren't captured
by military surveillance. Sushmita Bandopadhyay, a Kolkata girl, fell
in love and got married to an Afghan moneylender, Jaanbaz Khan. She stayed
with his family between 1989 and 1995 in his ancestral home some 120 km
from Kabul and has now come out with her memoir in a trilogy. The first
volume, Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou (Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife), published
in 1998, has sold seven lakh copies, including over one lakh copies of
a somewhat amateurish English version. Her publishers claim that the second
volume, Taliban, Afghan and I, in Bangla, out last year, is approaching
half-a-million in sales. The final volume, Ek Borno Mithya Noi (Not a
Word is a Lie), published earlier this year, was a rage much before the
September 11 attacks.
 Much
of the trilogy has moments which are the stuff of cinema. Like Bandopadhyay's
two abortive escape attempts which took her to and from the winding Khyber
Pass, to be stopped by her husband's relatives almost at the gate of the
Indian Embassy in Islamabad. These were journeys without a map or a passport.
Or like the encounter with a Taliban squad that could have been fatal.
"The Taliban court gave its verdict. I was to be shot dead on the
morning of July 22, 1995, on the charge of disorderly behaviour unbecoming
of a woman... At 10.27 a.m., I was brought to the mehmankhana (guest room)
where 15 Taliban soldiers, who were to be my executioners, were reading
from the Koran." As the "suras" (verses) unfolded themselves
in melodic incantation, one of the men looked up and asked: "Do you
want us to convey your last message to your husband?" She claims
that she managed to escape the jaws of death by snatching the loaded Kalashnikov
from the wall, thus turning the tables on the soldiers who usually keep
their firearms out in the courtyard.
Filmmakers are now queueing up at Bandopadhyay's
flat in the city's eastern suburbs. Kolkata film producer Vijay Nopani
and his ESC Films stole a march over others by buying the rights of a
film tentatively titled Escape from Taliban from the author. The film,
which has Manisha Koirala in the lead role, is being shot in Ladakh, a
terrain that bears close resemblance to Khan's native village.
While the producers are tight-lipped about their
plans, pressure is mounting on Bandopadhyay, both from outside and within
her home to take back the film rights of her story. Pakhtoon groups in
India feel the film might trigger racial conflicts. Khan, who has not
been to Afghanistan since 1990, is staunchly opposed to the idea of his
wife's stories being filmed. "My entire family back home in Afghanistan
could be killed."
Bandopadhyay thinks differently though. "The
Afghans, despite their backwardness, are a friendly lot but the Taliban
are as barbaric as the Huns from the past. I will not let my stories be
filmed if this line gets blurred by the omission or commission of the
filmmakers." Last week, the production company flew her to Ladakh
so that she could watch the shooting, examine the script and decide on
the film's fate.
Bandopadhyay and Khan live in a city far from
Ground Zero of the western powers' war on Islamic terrorism. She has embarked
on her new project, a weekly Bangla magazine focusing on women's rights.
Khan, who shies away from his wife's media friends and spends time pursuing
clients, had never suspected that his wife's memoirs in Bangla would make
a noise loud enough to find echoes back home. But nor does Bandopadhyay
think it is the wife's obligation to pass up an opportunity to reach a
large audience with first-hand tales about Taliban barbarism.
—Sumit Mitra
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