The Wind Catcher (The true story of Sultan)

This story is based on real events, although the names and locations have been altered. He is survived by his wife and two children. The last time I heard of them, the family was living in Quetta, Pakistan

1972

With his domesticated blackbird named Marjan perched on his shoulder, Abdulaleem’s buttocks pushed deeply into a defeated pillow. His long legs extended in front of him, one resting on the lap of his wife, Zari. He fixed his gaze on her blue eyes, watching as she used a sewing needle to dig after a stubborn thorn that had lodged into his foot while he was working in the field.

The pain of the needle poking under his skin was soothed by the indescribable sensation of her soft hands running over his rough skin. They lived in a three-room mud house that his badar (landlord) provided him. Abdulaleem’s only luxury in life was a counterfeit Tabrizi carpet his son Aktar Gul had brought from Iran. A framed photo of Mecca hung on the wall.

Abdulaleem was in his early 60’s, but his strong, broad shoulders and long beard framed him as an imposing figure, and the villagers called him Sufi, although he wasn’t a mystic. Villagers said in his younger days, he could uproot a young tree with one hand and smash a handful of beach shells in one massive palm. The Sufi dismissed such talk with his typical phrase, “Oh, let bygones be bygones.”

He was also fond of saying, “Only twice in my life did I have a full meal. On my wedding day and on the day my mother died.”

He feared only three things: Allah, the sten (syringe) and masel (the local police).

            He was a God-fearing, devout Muslim who prayed five time a day, observed Ramadan, didn’t trim his beard (because the Prophet Mohammad said Muslims should grow a beard to distinguish themselves from infidels) and refrained from haram (impure deeds such as stealing even a few grains from his landlord). He believed that poor Muslims enter paradise half a “day” (which is actually 500 years) earlier than rich Muslims. Yes, 500 years, and he would rather wait that long than have riches in this ephemeral world.

“We will have better crops this year,” Abdulaleem told Zari, “and we can afford to slaughter two lam (sheep or goats) for winter. We will have dried meat and plenty of pumpkins, beans, corn and inshallah, God willing, a bag of extra beans for rainy days so I don’t have to send our sons to Iran for work. Inshallah!

“You say the same thing every year at this time, for the past 30 years since I married you,” Zari said, “but your one never added to two.”

Abdulaleem’s ears perked up like watchdog’s. Zari jerked back as he pulled his feet from her care and sat up.

“What is it?” she asked.

He limped toward the round window.

“Osh,” he said, placing his index finger in front of his lips. He could see branches of the Sycamore tree twisting toward the east.

“The wind! The wind! Let us catch it before it dies down.” He scooped out some naswar (snuffing tobacco) and placed it under his thong, spilling some on the floor. Zari murmured a protest, but Abdulaleem hastily tied his faded turban around his big head, uttered a “Ye Allah,” ran his hand over his beard a few times, then dashed out of the door.

“I have been waiting for this for days,” Abdulaleem thought.

He shouted to his sons, Akhtar Gul, Rahim Gul.

“Where are you boys?” he cried out. “Grab your charchakh (an instrument used for wind-winnowing). Let’s run to catch the wind!”

The father and his sons were wind-winnowing for six hours non-stop. Every time the wind picked up speed, the father and sons threw the grain as high as they could to separate grain from shaft. Their faces were covered with the residue of shafts and dust, and their bodies were weary, but the anticipation of taking extra sacks of grain home and having warm, homemade bread was joyous. It meant they would not have to make the perilous journey to cross the border to take dangerous jobs. Their joy was more powerful than the strong winds.

            Sufi heard a goofy voice that he recognized instantly – his landlord, Sayeed Afandi Aghan.

“Barakat Barakat, the goofy voice said, giving blessings to Sufi as the landlord emerged from his shiny land Rover on the street. The landlord and his son, Sayeed Khan Aghan, covered their faces with handkerchiefs against the wind, dust and debris.

Short and stout, the landlord’s bulging belly poked out from his fancy chapan, and his small head bore a qaraquli (a fur hat). The landlord prided himself in being a descendant of Hazrat Omar, Islam’s second Khalifa.

His son was taller, and with his western suit, stubby beard and dark glasses, he looked a little like Colombo from the detective TV shows. He carried a small wooden box.

Sufi came forward to kiss the hand of his landlord.

“Kush amadid hazrat sabib,” (Welcome my lord), Sufi said. “Your coming will put more blessings to our crops this year.”

Sayeed shook his head.

“I heard that Nabi wants to sell his land,” he said. “Tell him that he cannot sell it to a stranger because I have the right of eminent domain.”

“I am sure, badar, he will not say no to you,” Sufi said.

The wind was dying down as sun began to sink behind the mountain. Sufi and Sayeed had been talking for almost half an hour when Sufi’s young son Sultan Ahmmad showed up to help his brothers with the final stages of cleaning the grain and getting it ready to be collected.

Sayeed Khan Agha watched as the brothers separated the shaft by sweeping it to the side and grooming the wheat down to the final product. Khan Afghan opened his box and fished out a wooden seal to mark the grain.

At home, Zari had prepared an ashkana, a vegetable soup with eight eggs in it. The room smelled of garlic and beets when Sufi and his sons entered. As always, they had washed their faces in the creek before coming home.

Sufi and the boys sat on one side of the floor, while Zari and their daughters Spoozhmay and Waway sat opposite them. After the supper, Zari brought two plates of grapes.

“Where did you get this?” Sufi asked.

Zari said she got them from a padler (a man who goes door-to-door selling goods packed on his donkey). “I also got some books and newspapers for Sultan.”

After dinner, young Sultan brought out the newspaper with a headline that said, “The Land Belongs to Those Who Toil It.”

A sixth-grader, Sultan started to read the essay out loud. It was about the exploitation of  peasants by landlords. Habib and Rahim listened closely and asked Sultan to read more.

“Revolution was the answer,” Sultan read. “Revolution to establish a regime of workers and peasants. It would be a regime with no exploitation, and no one would be poor. Everyone would have a job, and the new system would treat everyone the same and give to everyone based on his or her needs. This would be the end of inequality.”

“Son,” Sufi  said, “look at my fingers and look at your fingers. Are they the same, all equal? No, they are not. Allah decides who gets what. Don’t be fooled by those words. They are un-Islamic.”

After Sufi left the room, Sultan was so preoccupied with the idea of total equality that he couldn’t stop preaching it.

“Did you see that father and son in the field today?” he said. “They drove a fancy car, have a nice house, and do nothing. I am much smarter than them. We work like donkeys just to survive. Is this fair? Tomorrow they will come and take the grain, leaving just a small amount for us. Is this fair? They use religion as a way to keep this system. We have more power than we think. I am not going to wait for this ‘half day’ just to enter paradise earlier. I want a good life in this world. We have to start a revolution and get a fair system. If this is the way God decided it should be, then God is not fair.”

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That’s how it began. In 1979, young officers belonging to the Kahlq and Parcham parties – with ties to the Soviet Union – overthrew the Sardar Daud Khan government and took control of Afghanistan.

Sultan, a member of the Kahlq party who taught at his village elementary school, was appointed lieutenant governor of his province and chief of his party.

The first action he took was to send the Sayeed family to Kabul’s notorious Pulcharkhey prison, as enemies of people. He took Sayeed’s Land Lover and favorite horse Malek. He would kiss his AK-47, which he carried everywhere.

“I don’t trust God,” Sultan would say.” I trust my gun.”

He laughed aloud as he said, “Sayeed trusted God, and see what happened to him? I know what happened to him. He is resting forever in the graveyard for enemies of people.”

Soon, Sultan claimed ownership of Sayeed’s land and encouraged peasants to claim land for themselves.

Sultan’s power grew, unchallenged by party members. He was feared by landlords, influential officials and religious leaders. Sultan sent many of them to Kabul, never to be heard from again.

After a year in office, Sultan put an extra 20 pounds around his belly, his face grew puffy, and he was acting more like Sayeed every day. Once he told a western journalist, “Islam has ruled this country for the past 1,400 years. Let’s give Marxism a chance.”

One day in fall, Sultan stood in his office gazing from window. It was a blustery day similar to the one when he was wind-winnowing grain with his father and brothers. He watched as a trucked stopped on the road and a group of men toting guns came running toward his office. Sultan picked up the phone to call his security force, but no one answered.

He jumped when a bullet ripped through the window, narrowly missing him. Sultan grabbed his trusty AK-47.

A few months later, his brothers were looking for his remains. They were told by a witness that Sultan fought bravely but was taken down many of those who called themselves mujahideen. Sultan called them the enemies of the people, but when he ran out of bullets he was hit and felled. His bloody body was sprayed with gasoline.

Forty years passed, and still no one knows where his remains ended up. Nor does anyone know the fate of Sayeed and his family who were taken to prison.

Millions of Afghans have died during this bloody conflict, which continues to this day. Many lie in graves that are tombs of the unknown.

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