Kabul – A Short Walk at Kabul Underpass

Today I want to take you to take a walk around the center of Kabul, just to see how the ordinary days pass through, and how the ordinary air fills the atmosphere. Let’s go down to ‘Kabul Subway’. I remembered this phrase when a man from Kandahar I met in 2003, in my first visit to Afghanistan, took me around the capital. It was no kind of underground metro station which I imagined. Kabul Subway, or underground passage to be exact, was the safest crossway for pedestrians from the wild traffic at the heart of the capital. A simple crossway it was not. The dark stairway and crowded underground passage brought me to a deep contemplation, about the live of a country named Afghanistan, a place that used to haunt my dreams, a place that remain in people’s fantasy, a place that turned to be rubbles after endless wars since the history began.

It’s very crowded during peak hours, which last for most time of the day

I couldn’t forget the shabby dark passage, filled by dozens of children offering plastic bags and shoe polishing service, as well as women bodies wrapped by dirty, full-of-holes, blue burqas begging for alms. I quote what I have written in my diary at that time:
“Kabul Subway was a dark, musty long alley underground. Amputated beggars, very likely to be war victims, crawled, crying for alms. There were also the children, who were covered by feeling of hopelessness declared by the emptiness in their eyes, whimpered in languages that I understood none but sadness. Kabul Subway, despite of its merely some meter length and width, was enough to show me the other side of Afghanistan. The dark face, bearing all kinds of suffers and pains, of a country which I just knew. I was shocked.”

People just walk normally, as if that body doesn’t exist

Now, about four years have passed, the underpass is still a crowded place. Darkness is lessened by winkling little bulbs. It is not as musty as before. Or maybe I prefer to see on brighter side? Shops are opening along one side of the wall, and the other side was filled by ‘portable shops’. Here you can see people selling mobile phones, shoes, and even jewelries on floor. The underpass was busy, and reminded me to those of Central Asia.

You can find almost anything here

In big cities of Central Asia, like Tashkent, Bishkek, Almaty, Karaganda, Asghabat, and Dushanbe, underground crossing also turns to be busy shop lines, offering from postcards, second hand books, photocopy service, until luxurious locomotive replica worth 3000 US$ (in Kazakhstan). In some cities the underpass also turns to be orchestra for street musicians, offering calm, old Russian songs played with accordion. I couldn’t get confirmation, but as the existence of Kabul underpass was even earlier than those of Peshawar (Pakistan), I assumed that this was work of the Russians when Afghanistan was under Soviet influence. Just the same as its ex-Soviet Central Asian counterparts, the underpass of Kabul turned back to its dual functions: crossing way and commercial center.

A woman beggar with her baby

Women beggars are still there, children shoe polishers are there as well. Some more improvised business, like selling lottery coupons or electromagnetic torchlight (very useful in dark nights of Afghanistan!) also takes place here. The walls were covered by broken posters, pasted here during the election as free media of campaign. Thousands of busy people pass through resemble a strong stream of a river of rushed men. No time to stop. No time to look at the sleeping woman beggar with her baby. No time to listen to the children grieving. Although the concept of ‘time is money’ does not really suit to the life of Kabul dwellers today, but it seems that nobody wants to waste their time in this underground passage.