War was ever-present. I should say, since we grew up amidst war, the sound of bullets and the chaos of battle had become routine for us. It was as if we had grown accustomed to war. I would go to university and return home again, my heart was at ease from Balahesar, the barricade, and its guard soldiers. Soldiers who, in my eyes, were the heroes of those days; kind, selfless, and patriotic soldiers. It was 2:00 in the morning when, as usual, the war intensified, and because our house was close to the barricades, the gunfire sounded uncomfortably near to us. We didn’t sleep until morning and prayed for the soldiers, prayed fervently. After that day, the situation became more dire. The news of the fall of Imam Sahib district reached our ears. This news shocked me; it was unbelievable to me.
When Imam Sahib district, and then all of Kunduz’s districts, fell, we had to leave the city. As we headed towards Kabul, I thought of the heroes who were said to have resisted the Taliban for several nights and days under full siege. The city appeared as if it had become a corpse, utterly terrifying. As I looked at my city with tears in my eyes, I muttered to myself, cursed be all of you! Can one possibly turn a homeland, which they know as their own, into dust and blood? Is it possible to ruthlessly kill one’s fellow countrymen? Distress and dark thoughts overwhelmed me entirely.
Thousands of people like us from provinces where the intensity of war had increased were heading to Kabul. Everyone thought that the Taliban’s calamity wouldn’t strike Kabul; I thought the same. I thought Kunduz had fallen once before and its control was regained. However, this time, seeing the situation in other provinces, I wasn’t very hopeful, and my only consolation was the safety of Kabul. The thought of Kabul falling never crossed my mind. But this consolation didn’t last long. Kabul was lost too. Of course, we didn’t stay long in Kabul. When most provinces had fallen and friends who had gone to Kunduz informed us to return home again, partly because news of Kabul’s fall kept coming, we went back to our city.
We returned to our city, but nothing was as it used to be. Only the regime hadn’t changed; people and cities had all changed. When I went to university, professors warned us to dress modestly, even though our attire had always been modest. Later, the warnings took a different tone, and we were told to wear black to university, otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed entry.
Everything made me sad. When I saw the Taliban on every corner of the city, patrolling in police rangers with dirty clothes and unkempt hair, I wondered to myself, in whose hands has the homeland fallen!
On one of those days when our exams had started and I wanted to enter the university, two Taliban militants with very stern faces wouldn’t let me enter the university. I managed to enter with difficulty, but what I saw was unbelievable. Everyone in the university – both professors and students – seemed lost and hopeless. It was very distressing. At that moment, one of the professors announced that all remaining exams would be held in one day.
When I handed my exam paper to my professor, I saw that, like me, all students and even the professors had tears in their eyes. Everyone’s heart ached for our situation. One of the professors told us that, God willing, the university would reopen at the earliest opportunity. What is this earliest opportunity? I don’t know! All I know is, “Oh my dear homeland! A year passes, and another year comes, and everything in you becomes darker and dirtier.”
Note: The author wrote this narrative from the perspective of the narrator.