Memories of Kabul An Evening to Cherish

In the wintertime, the craggy heights of the Margalla Hills which provides a picturesque backdrop to Islamabad would sometimes be snow-capped, not to mention the faintly visible Murree hills… a distant bluish-white haze. However, until Kabul I had never lived through a snowfall, let alone a blizzard. Therefore, the first intermittent yet heavy snowfall I experienced and lived through for almost three weeks with incredibly low wind-chill factor was in Kabul.

It was in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 24th December, 1972, when suddenly in the late afternoon the first snow flurries of the season began. It was a gorgeous sight with an unmatched beauty of its very own. The snow-flakes came floating down gently at first like the feathers of a white dove and, then copiously draping everything in white. It seemed to coax nature into hibernation. Although, while living in Islamabad, Pakistan, we had sometimes experienced frigid temperatures and occasionally saw some hoar frost in the early mornings, we had   never experienced any real snowfall. Whenever, we visited the colonial era hill-station of Murree in winter, it was always after a snowfall. In the wintertime, the craggy heights of the Margalla Hills which provides a picturesque backdrop to Islamabad would sometimes be snow-capped, not to mention the faintly visible Murree hills… a distant bluish-white haze. However, until Kabul I had never lived through a snowfall, let alone a blizzard. Therefore, the first intermittent yet heavy snowfall I experienced and lived through for almost three weeks with incredibly low wind-chill factor was in Kabul. And, in the early evening of that Christmas Eve, we witnessed our first 'White Christmas,' which incidentally is also the title of a memorable song sung and recorded in 1942, by the world-famous American crooner Bing Crosby, the first multimedia star of the 20th century.

It all started when in late December, 1972, a group of us - all young Bengali men – intrepid adventurers, albeit enforced travelers had just escaped from Islamabad to Kabul with the help of a Pathan cartel on our way to New Delhi and thence to newly liberated Bangladesh. For further details of our 'great escape from Pakistan', you may like to visit Google to see my feature-article in The Daily Star entitled, 'From the Labyrinth of Memory'. 

And, on that particular Christmas Eve, as snow blanketed Kabul and a light blizzard with howling winds rattled the mock French windows of our hotel room, we listened to some great music by: Isaac Hayes (of the 'Shaft' fame), James Brown, Santana, Doors and a lot of jazz. On that memorable evening in our makeshift hotel named, 'Regal Hotel' (unregal, really!), we were joined by Andrew, an African American with a portable cassette player and an inviting bottle of Jack Daniel's and, a little later by a tall, lanky, long haired Netherlander (Dutch) with a guitar and bongo. Outside in the snowfall, groups of boisterous inebriated young Westerners on the hippie-trail went by ringing bells and singing Christmas Carols. And in the faint mellow light, amidst the moaning wind and a mini-blizzard which we could view through the large windows, we were treated by Andrew to a cassette-recording of a soul-searing blues song sung by the incomparable American jazz singer 'Lady' Carmen McRae in her inimitable style of raw passion, the tone and tenor of her voice – virile - almost masculine! It was a powerful rendition of the song 'The Look of Love' (1967), which ends with a heartbreaking piteous pleading," Don't ever go, because I love you so." It is a song that I cherish to this very day. I was already fond of Jazz, but became enamored of it ever since that particular evening. Later on, I would have my fill while in the US in the early 1970s, where I attended a number of exhilarating jazz festivals, in some former antebellum Southern states, especially in New Orleans which has left an indelible impression in my mind.

However, on that particular evening long years ago, the ambience in our hotel room in Kabul was such: we were six young men with yet miles to traverse, far away from our kith and kin, suddenly thrust into a latter day 'medieval kingdom,' kept warm by the glow of an 'ancient' wood-lit fireplace while listening enraptured to an amazing blues song, the sheer intensity, beauty and pathos of which seemed to slowly but surely seep deep into our finer sensibilities.

Waqar A Khan is the Founder of Bangladesh Forum for Heritage Studies.