Close Shaves

JULY 2000 - One thing the Youth Football Club of Kandhar have clearly understood is, that should you require a professional head shave, simply wear baggy shorts and kick a football in any area that falls in the kingdom of Afghanistan. Your wishes will be granted quickly. Should you however be in the market for a different shave, say the legs, then simply don a half-sleeve T Shirt and kick another football. Your wish will be granted at the same speed as before.

Since the close shave took place, there has been a lot of kicking about of the issue, with the team players taking hasty refuge in the Pakistan Embassy (I thought it had been bombed out of existence years ago) and some protesting sounds emerging from the un-shaved manager of the team who said that this was shocking. The sports minister at Kabul (this too was a surprise; I thought sports did not have a minister) regretted the unhappy incident and assured everyone was listening that the guilty would not go scot free or whatever is the equivalent of that phrase in Kabul these days, scot being a farangi who probably wears shorts. Among other significant lessons to be learnt from all this is, that the barbers can be excused if they believe they have a pretty bright future in Afghanistan.

Last year, around this time, I arrived on a Sunday at Montgomery Road, the car spare parts market and was accosted by a young cleric in a dark green turban, who between providing me the part, also threw in a lecture that consigned various uncovered parts of my body, namely knees-feet and elbows-wrists, straight to eternal damnation. However, I must confess that I escaped any notions he might have had about shaving my hair off for the simple reason that I paid in double quick time and took off at speeds that could have impressed Schumaker. And just as we are still trying to work out whether the Kabul shaves were to be regarded as comical or utterly serious, there is a letter in the newspaper where DHA, the Defence Housing Society in Lahore, has banned joggers from wearing shorts to the parks in their jurisdiction. There are other equally progressive administrative steps that are being implemented joyfully in other parks of the city, and I am sure in other cities of the country. Another resident of DHA who is on good terms with one of the leading clerics of the area was told that they were planning to bring down Rolland the Clown’s ‘mujasma’ because it was idolatry. He pleaded and said they had built such a nice park and children loved the clown and had a good time, he relented but suggested that he be given a handsome discount on every visit to the burger joint. It will require many burgers to save Rolland.

The Taliban have a valid point. They have their rules and if you don’t like them, well don’t visit their country. Now this will come as a blow to the millions of eager-beaver tourist types who were all packed up and ready to rock and roll, but sacrifices have to be made to keep things in check. So while commerce is very important to the brethren the other side of the Khyber (and this side as well), even football has to be called off should the sight of men running helter skelter in loose, baggy leg-revealing shorts cause another revolution and create more problems. As it is, blades are in short supply and shaving cream costs the same as a Toyota Corolla. This could be an exaggerated figure. What puzzles the fans of the Taliban is that who would be excited by the sight of eleven scruffy men running hither and yon in a dusty field, probably surfeit with land mines ? Surely not the women who are more or less an endangered species and are now on the list of protected monuments. Other Afghani men ? Or perhaps it is the football that is offending sensibilities. Footballs have been known to do strange things. Maybe a goal scored is not entirely a socially permissible scene, particularly when only one hand clapping is allowed. David Copperfield, the master illusionist is still working out how they do it – not scoring the goal, but the clapping.

As it is, the Afghans don’t play many games and don’t have a cricket team either – well none that I have seen in action. Although I suppose they wouldn’t find cricket attire too offensive. Full length trousers, full sleeve shirts and sweaters, helmets to cover the hair and the head, and visors as well, that could become the fashion rage in Kabul given half a chance. Of course fast bowlers who have a reputation for fooling around with cricket balls are bound to cause a rumpus the minute they start polishing the red cherry to give it shine and swing. Unless there is special dispensation from the Ministry of Sports, cricket could have a fairly limited stay in Afghanistan, unlike its neighbours India and Pakistan where it has been around for years altogether. As for other sports, unless they come up with a revolutionary styling in men’s baggy trousers, swimming in six yard shalwars is unlikely to threaten any world records in the world. However, if the Olympic Association can introduce other categories in the swimming calendar, like fancy dress swimming galas, where happy youth in six yarders floating about with air-filled shalwars are likely to mesmerize judges and audiences alike, swimming too would be long gone in Afghanistan. Hockey in track suits or field events in the same gear may produce years of goal-less crops, as reasonably built physically sound men will flounder about and eventually pass out having been unable to put hockey stick to ball. In track events, the sight of shalwar-loaded men in a 100 metre sprint, is not going to shake up former greats like Carl Lewis who were barreling along at around 10 seconds flat for the whole race. A new category for the slowest 100 metres would of course be an entirely different story. I don’t see many bright stars out for other events such as weight lifting, boxing, discus throw (although why discuss when you can throw ?) and high jumping, but three-legged steeple races might be what the Afghans are looking for.

I am, therefore, fairly optimistic that football players and other minor diversions aside, there is quite a potential for sports of another dimension, though how precisely they will determine that dimension is another story.