visiting this beautiful city again, for all of those good reasons and more.

anyone who was watching last night’s phenomenal almagro-nadal match in paris as part of the bnp paribas masters series would understand why tennis is such a thrill to watch even if you have never held a raquette.

the match went to rafael nadal 6-3, 6-7, 5-7 after an incredible roller-coaster ride that lasted 3 hours and 14 minutes and had the rest of us glued to the screens.

it had all the drama and heartbreak one could ask for, and then some -at times, i could not take it any longer and was watching it between my fingers, so tense did it all get. (i recall doing that with horror movies some years back before i decided to stop watching horror-fests and started watching sports instead.)

the incredible intensity of the second set that lasted nearly 1.5 hours, the palpable tension of the 6 deuce matches, and finally the anti-climax of the last set when a cramp in almagro’s left leg made him throw the game with some drama-queen shenanigans and nadal once again proved why he is a champion and the world’s number one number two, and a man among boys.

چه شکر هاست درین شهر که قانع شده اند
شاهبازانِ طریقت به مقامِ مگسی

حافظ-

the smell of winter-
is in the air

it’s in the chill of the mornings (even when the temperature is higher than some mid-summer mornings)
it’s in the the mid-day cool (even though the sun is high in the sky)
it’s in that old familiar whiff of burning firewood that makes its way from chimney tops to your nostrils (cartloads of which firewood are being hauled off every which way every day)
and in the old familiar sight of snow-
lightly capping mountains surrounding kabul

it’s in the eyes of those who will suffer the worst in the winter for want of warm clothing and warm food and warm homes;
those who await the spring most eagerly, most meaningfully (and unlike you and i who like it for the romance of the daffodils)

is there anything in the world sadder
than a train standing in the rain?

-pablo neruda, the book of questions

*

plus, and for the second time here, let it be known to one and all that i love madonna’s la isla bonita, and think that it is one of the most happy, sad, melancholy and youthful ballads ever sang that fill you with a deep desire to go off into unknown places and timeless times where deserts have all the romance and none of the harshness, and where people speak a mix of spanish and farsi, because both are such beautiful languages. for added effect watch the video of the talented alizee rendering this song -the personification of the young girl with eyes like the desert.

از خدا می طلبم صحبتِ روشن رایی

حافظ-

this returning expatriate friend handed me a gift this afternoon he picked up on his trip home. a seemingly unusual gift but one that i particularly appreciate because it is not the generic fountain-pen type gift that is thoughtless and perfunctory.

it is a large molybdenum/vanadium steel alloy kitchen knife called ’slitbar’ -sharp as a gillette razor, and a beauty to behold.

the lesser known fact (which i had discussed with this friend) is that i love cooking when i can get around to it, and do it with wasteful abandon and investment of time and care. and nothing is handier in the kitchen than a good, wholesome, heavy, large, and sharp knife.

there is afghanistan the cultural-anthropological curiosity.

and then there is afghanistan the country.
(which is were so many of us lead real lives.)

and there have been many occasions when i have wished to point out this seemingly simple, self-evident truth to many a self-anointed pontificators on afghanistan.

we don’t see things as they are,
we see them as we are.

-anaïs nin

i paraphrased that from the mariner’s revenge song by the decembrists, the fantastic, wholesome, agonizing, anguished 8.4 minute long ballad that leaves me satisfied and sad everytime i hear it.

*

i am back in kabul.
and what happens when i get back to kabul?
that’s right -i am swept away with the deluge of work, except that this time the onrush is more severe given that i have been a way for the longest period ever -3 weeks.

*

but on the plus side of it all, i am alive, and safe, and seemingly have survived the elections -survival in all senses. maybe. maybe in one or two senses of it. don’t know yet.

but i have decided to write a will. i read it somewhere about an afghan american couple that they packed up and left for afghanistan and took their favorite music collection along, and of course wrote their will. and for a minute i thought right, that’s something to do.

*
also, lastly, the blog has broken the 50,000 visit mark. i usually do not obsess about visitor numbers -especially on this blog, but that’s a pretty good milestone for any blog. even the least cared for ones. (actually as of this moment it’s at 50,998 visitors). so thanks to all of ya’ll for coming along for the ride.

*

kabul is calm and sunny today, with some gentle clouds gliding lazily about the sky. we need the rain -the dust and the drought is not helping things what with the flu officially in country now.