Kabul, the City of My Dreams

Mohammad Younus Toghyan Sakai grew up inside the Shahnameh, and reading Zal and Rudaba he built a Kabul in his head: a body of water with coloured flowers growing along its banks, people picking them, hunters after duck and waterfowl, a high citadel in the city. He first arrived in spring and got down from the car at Pul-e Bagh-e Umumi, where — against all expectation — there was no garden at all. There was a river, though, running full of clear water. Readers may not believe it, he writes: yes, the Kabul River was full of clean water. Every year since has been worse than the last, and that is more than forty years now. Text in Dari/Persian.

Author: محمدیونس طغیان ساکایی

Original title: شهر رؤیاهای من، کابل