POSTCARDS FROM TORA BORA

This documentary comes with many unique characteristics. Firstly, it brings glimpses of the past memories to which many of the growing Afghan generations have very little access, if at all. It reminds observers of peaceful times and days of affluence. Secondly, while tracing back the past of a person, this documentary also opens many windows to the realities that the present day Afghans face in a poignant way.

Seen through the eyes of a Kabul born film studies student at New York University viewers get a look at the lives of what Afghan individuals and families go through in their homeland and abroad.

The documentary tells us about Wazhmah, the girl ripped away from her childhood, her family uprooted from their home and now living far away in the USA. We also get to know about Wazhmah’s father, Ahmad Osman, the kind-hearted doctor (seen on the right) who despite having lost his youth days in prison during the socialist regime, later dedicates rest of his life to serve his Afghan compatriots and turns down all requests to leave the risks and hardships and move to USA to join his family saying: “The US may have a million doctors, but who will come to work in Afghanistan.” But the young girl longing is evident from her telling remark, “but who will fill my need for a father’s company.”

The 87 minute documentary is in fact a story comprising of several other stories each worth a short documentary in its own right. Above all it tells the tales of lives turned topsy turvy due to the upheavals the Afghan people have passed through. The documentary is a reminder of past tranquillity and recent turmoil amidst subtle references to how much has changed can draw many inferences on how the process of reconstruction in Afghanistan and rebuilding the lives of the Afghan people is faring.

Directors Wazhmah Osman and Kelly Dolak make imaginative use of the promotion material from Afghan national airlines Ariana and illustrates how the image portrayed on those photographs contrasts with the actual state those very places are situated in these days. This reveals the difference between the real life and the make believe world, between a romanticist’s version of Afghanistan and the realities found in the country today.

The festive family gatherings attended by Afghan women in skirts reminds of the freedom women availed in those years. The documentary later shows how those times have starkly changed ever since enforcing many contrasts as reflected from the image contrasting images of past and present.

Producer/ Editor/ Animator Stephen Jablonsky brings to life the paintings drawn by Afghan boys and girls at the International Orphan Care centre in Kabul. The pictures make us think about the trauma of growing up in years of conflict in which many of these children lost their parents and other loved ones. The documentary takes us to outings in Kabul’s outskirts that are forty years apart. A selection from surviving recording of film allows the viewers to peek into the past to late 1960s when Wazhmah’s parents got married, to the parties they held and the picnics they went to.

The documentary carries tales of the country’s tormented transition and the troubled transformation that the society has endured and is still encountering. We are reminded that in the aftermath of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Wazhmah’s family sought refuge in Peshawar, Pakistan and how she longed that soon she could return to a peaceful Kabul.

When talking to a few people on Kabul’s streets, Wazhmah steps into a video shop where her

conversation with the shop owner reveals tensions that Kabul residents encounter daily to survive, reflecting a rift between hopes of a better tomorrow that Kabul residents anticipated in past years and the tough realities they face today.

The conversation also hints at the difficult nature of local-alien dynamics in present day Afghanistan. There is a sense of friction, the bitterness the locals feel as they notice the few wealthy locals and well-off immigrants by paying higher fare raise the bar higher for majority who struggle to survive.

One interesting character that illustrates the sharp contrast experienced between a bright past and a dark present is Wazhmah’s aunt, Tohira, the lady Doctor from Kabul. As Wazhmah and aunt Tohira go on an outing they find a bunch of young lads staring at them disapprovingly. Asks why it is so a young person remarks “you lot are weird women.” This makes the contrast even starker as they find a few Afghan women sitting in a part of the secluded with sheets so that they can’t be seen by passersby. Doctor Tohira turns down an invitation to sit inside this secluded zone candidly remarking, “I will get bored in there.” This exchange suggests that difficulties of adjustment resident Afghans and those who now travel back to their past homeland from abroad undergo. As the visiting lady doctor revisits locations linked to her birthplace and childhood past with a sense of entitlement what she encounters is a sense of estrangement.

It is very interesting to find some common observations captured by another documentary albeit in a different geographical setting "Open Shutters Iraq" by Maysoon Pachachi which chronicles a project where Iraqi women created photo diaries of their lives. Both documentaries speak of the upheaval in the lives of individuals from a conflict ridden country, the change they undergo and the way their lives are affected and transformed personally and collectively.

The writer and director of this documentary have a sharp sense of observation and a delicate way of conveying their subtle but poignant observations effectively. In one episode of the documentary, Wazhmah Osman visits Kabul’s Puli Charkhi Central Prison where his father Dr. Ahmad Osman was held by the socialist Afghan regime in 1978-79. On her way in she noted an inscription and filmed it on her video camera. It reads: “We have 800 prisoners in here. Prison is like a backbone of the society, it is an important institution.”

The documentary introduces us to the Omar Mine Museum, a sombre reminder of the dark side of Afghanistan’s brush with globalization over different periods ranging from days of ideological contestations between and against Khalq-Parcham Party, military invasions, armed interventions all the way to the present day operations of foreign forces stationed there.