Kabul Diary - Enterprise And Opportunity

I have never met the local contact who is supposed to pick me up. So when he tells me he is outside, I walk, well, outside. There is only a Hummer outside. Not the shiny beasts that some film stars drive around in midnight Mumbai. It’s the kind John Travolta drives in Broken Arrow when he steals nuclear missiles. But with lot of wires and other contraptions that only Americans find the need to invent, sticking out of its monstrous form. My contact is nowhere.

There is a steady stream of vehicles to the airstrip – diplomatic traffic that bypasses everything ordinary mortals are put through – straight to the waiting planes. I call my contact again. He is waiting… in the waiting hall. I see no waiting hall. I say I am standing next to the big picture of President Karzai outside the airport. He says he will come there.

He calls. He is near the `big picture’ of Karzai. I am near that too. Then why the hell can’t we see each other.

Then it strikes. This is secure premises where an Afghan cannot just drive in with his car. That parking is a good half kilometer walk. The big picture is just one of the scores of other smiling Karzais on billboards and posters across Kabul. So the outside is yet outside.

The outside is certainly different from other outsides I’ve been. For instance, there are people, who may or may not be soldiers, walking around nonchalantly with some poky looking things slung on their shoulders. Bazookas. Kalashnikovs seem to be standard issue to every third person on the street.

The road is swarming with vehicles. Actually, Toyotas. Of all sizes. Toyota rules.

There is no honking. The order is chaotic. Drivers are always accommodating. Slowing down to wave walkers across. Gunslingers hang out of huge pickups (Toyota Hilux). They are private security guards, Muhammad (my guide) tells me. I remember an ad in the in-flight magazine, of an agency offering armoured Land Cruisers; on daily, monthly, or long-term basis. Enterprise.

What will be of them if Afghanistan becomes peaceful? Opportunity certainly has a cost.