August- Strange place to be, especially if you are me, the boss, as previously mentioned got appointed as the ASG- crazy fucks who thought she fit the bill, really what were they thinking? You give someone who abuses power coz she can, all the power and what do you get, a manic psychopath, out to screw the world over.

The last month has been crazy, working 7 to 12, 7 days a week and along came Kabul, just coz no one else wanted to visit the alleged Most Dangerous place on earth and I grabbed it with both hands.( frankly a lot of places in India are far more dangerous)

Friends and family scowled, but for me this was just the getaway I had dreamed off for the longest time.

So 5 days here and there is so much to write, so much to share and I am just shaking off the writer's block.

Anyways penned an informal report for colleagues back home, thought it would be worth sharing.

Dear All,
A big warm hello from sunny and utterly dusty Kabul, (I know the last sentence made it sound like a beach resort) but it isn’t, it’s a far cry from anything most of us have ever imagined or experienced. The fact is no matter how much you read or hear about a place, experiencing it from ground zero is a different deal altogether.
This experience has been utterly enriching for me, not only for the knowledge I have gained from the people I have met, but also understanding how things work here.
Afghanistan is a nation that has been battered and bruised and the scars are everywhere for all to see, the Russian invasion, and the Taliban and Mujhaeedin have literally turned this once beautiful country upside down and given it a good shake.
Even now the scars are everywhere, lack of roads and trees, bullet-ridden buildings and housing blocks destroyed by rockets and bombs.
No matter how much you try to ignore it, you just cant miss it.
Though things are changing for all, Afghanistan is on a really slow path to recovery and normalcy. And when will things be normal, is a question for which no one even here has an answer.
The biggest problem has been the international community including the UN, who forgot the whole concept of Nation Building after the invasion of 2002.
They just came in tried to destroy the Taliban and pretty much left a nation gripped with poverty and destruction to fend for itself. With no infrastructure, no roads, schools, government, it was a mighty tough task.
Nation Building was only an after thought, when it should have been the primary concern for the international community. The result of which is things have worsened since 2005, with Taliban making a come back and even today 8 provinces in Afghanistan are still under Taliban control. And on Monday night I experienced my first and I hope only tryst with the Taliban, when indiscriminate rockets were fired in/towards Kabul, one landing a couple of minutes from where I am camped. It was very early in the morning and I was thrown out of bed, the huge explosion was followed by rapid gunfire which lasted a good ten minutes, to be honest I didn’t know how to react so much to the displeasure of the Anti tobacco unit and Ms Jaising I smoked a cigarette. The guards at the guesthouse were running helter skelter asking me to hide in the bathroom and pulling out more guns.
Another thing I have noticed here, guns, there are more guns than you can imagine, there are more guns than people, everyone dons a Kalashnikov like it’s a toy. Much to my amazement I was handed one too, not like I knew what to do with it, but holding the infamous AK 47 in my hands was a feeling I cant explain, a weapon, which has caused soo many deaths, my feelings were hard to fathom.


As for me I have been here since Sunday and have since met a Supreme Court Judge, a Professor for Sharia Law, People from the Ministry of Health, Members of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Ngo’s dealing with returnees, drugs and HIV positive people, members of UNODC, members of IOM and some HIV+ patients/clients.
The knowledge I have gained is precious, some things that stand out and come to my mind while I pen this, is that there is no court fee in Afghanistan, they have a working legal aid system, there are at least 4 women judges who are members of the Supreme Court, and there is reservation for women in the Parliament.
And just this morning I was informed that the Ministry for Women, here has prepared a draft bill for Domestic Violence which will be tabled soon before the Parliament, so Afghanistan might have its own Domestic Violence Law by the end of this year. I am in the process of getting hold of the afore mentioned draft.
Further everyone here consumes drugs, almost everyone, including half the security guards here and my driver (Shakib, who doesn’t let me out of his sight and carries two pistols and a fully loaded Ak 47 at all times, I even saw him sleeping with his gun the other day). Its like Drugs and opium are a part of life; charas is available like candy across almost every shop, which is scary considering the ease with which children can access it.
The UNODC a monitoring body is trying hard to eradicate the evils of drugs vis a vis opium cultivation, but without other factors intrinsic to development I don’t see how they will succeed.
I was informed that before the invasion by the American forces in 2002, Afghanistan was opium free, which is no longer the case. If and only if Nation building had been carried out by the International Community things would could and should have been different.
What the international community including the UNODC needs to do is not just go out there and distribute wheat seeds to the farmers ( which is what they have done so far), but build an infrastructure whereby the farmers can sell their produce, build roads, build cold storages and have a proper transport system amongst other things.
There is so much more that needs to be done, that the task at hand looks ominous if not improbable.
Finally for me, I stay locked in my room apart from the times I am out with Shakib interviewing people and cant wait to get back home where I like most of us take things like food and clean water for granted.. Its more to do with a promise I made to lot of people before I came here of coming back alive and without any holes in my body.
I still have two days to go and really hope the remaining interviews go well and as planned and I can be back home by Saturday evening.

Signing off
Your personal Afghan correspondent