Freedom is Beauty, and sometimes, Beauty is Freedom...

Beauty is part of every culture. The power in feeling beautiful is immeasurable.   There are some great stories in Kabul that nurture the beauty of a person inside and out thereby building self esteem and making them feel good. That feeling is liberating, something that cannot be quantified but has a deep impact in the moment and beyond...

I recently met a woman who is running for the Parliamentary Elections in September. During the Taleban Regime, she saved her money and bought one treadmill which she planted in her house. She spent hours each day motivating her women friends to come over and exercise on the treadmill, they lost weight, felt beautiful and it shook off the depression that inflicts so many in warzones. She said she was able to save a few lives. Suicidal rate is high among women suffering from violence in Afghanistan (domestic violence and effects of the war).

Seattle Times Article :Two Afghan women work on mannequins in the docu-mentary "The Beauty Academy of Kabul."

In 2001, a group of American hairdressers came to post taliban kabul to set up the first beauty school. http://www.beautyacademyofkabul.com/  The idea that the pusuit of beauty is an element of democracy and nation building made the school an attractive prospect for beauty industry philanthropists.

Charity Fashion Show -Kabul

Last friday, I participated in a charity fashion show. The founder of a girls school designs clothes that she sells and the proceeds go back to the school. My friends  (English, Korean, American, Kenyan) , an Afghan girl and I participated in the fashion show. The Afghan girl only agreed if she were allowed to keep the hijab on. I admired her courage in stepping out of her comfort zone to participate, yet holding the respect for her culture and traditions instead of defying and rejecting her legacy. It showed her sensibility, maturity and pragmatism.

Charity fashion show

 

The evening was spectacular. In minutes we felt like supermodels,  feeling beautiful as we were watched strutting around like peacocks. The show stopper in my eyes was the Afghan girl. She danced on the ramp, connected with the audience with her eyes and expressed her feminity with reckless abandon, her spirit bursting through the seams of her veil.

Thank you Afghanistan for these moments. This day made me feel beautiful, it made me feel free, empowered, feminine and liberated in the midst of the war. It made me realise it can be done by respecting, not defying local tradition. It was a reminder of the things that make us human. Things that don't matter much, in the larger scheme of things, but empower us beyond measure and loom large when taken away. Things we all have in common...

Charity Fashion Show: Afghan dress with headscarves

Art is Courage

The Strength of a Woman (Work of the Artists )

Last summer I arrived in time for the annual art exhibition organized by Turquoise Mountain Foundation (TMF), an NGO set up in 2006, backed by two patrons, HRH Prince of Wales and HE Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan. http://www.turquoisemountain.org  Coincidentally, I arrived this summer just in time for the 3rd annual exhibit.

TMF has an institute for Afghan Arts and Architecture under which it runs several schools. One of which is the School of Calligraphy and painting. Through this program they train and mentor painters on posture, movement and materials. At the end of the year they organize an exhibition of their students best work. 

The two faces of Islam (Work of the Artists)

(Work of the Artists)

We express facets of ourselves through our work,interaction and creativity. The works of these afghan painters for me reflected the turmoil and struggles of the war. It reflected fear, anger, hurt, pain, yet glimpses of hope, faith and courage. It was heartening to meet the artists and talk to them. Some of them had never known they had such talent in their hands until TMF helped them discover it. Others knew but had no avenue to express or be valued for it. 

(Work of the Artists))

Seeing these artists exhibit their talent and win recognition in the form of prize money was such an inspiring and empowering, yet humbling experience. This was a dream come true for all of them. Art requires courage, a lot of courage. Courage to believe in yourself, courage to stay grounded, firm and sincere to the art form and pursue it diligently, drawing strength from the outside world that applauds or recognizes it's worth.

Bagh-e-Babur Gardens (built by Agakahan foundation) hosted the Art Exhibition

I bow down to my brother and to all my friends who are artists, from painters to sculptors to musicians to designers to singers to actors to writers. I have seen many of you struggle, yet persevere through thick and thin and find your own place in the sun. Charles Horton Cooley, an american sociologist, once said, an artist cannot fail, it is in fact a success to be one.

Hamida, Shirin and me at the TMF art exhibit at the Bagh-e-Babur, July 2010

My free spirit

I arrived in Kabul three weeks ago. Even though I've lived here before, I have returned with a new employer and had to undergo standard security procedures and protocol. One such procedure was receiving my BlackBerry and learning how to use the GPS secure locator. This application tracks your movements at all times.

While I was undergoing my training in the office to test how the GPS locator works, I was shown a large computer screen with a map of the area I live and work in Kabul and with one click we narrowed down to our office that displayed all my office mates in the office as it should. However, I was not on the screen. After several attempts to scroll up and down the enlarged digital map of the office to find me, my security head clicked on my name. Seconds later, we followed the navigator outside the office, 300 miles away on a mountain top... thats where the GPS secure application picked up my Blackberry signal. Confused and bewildered, my security folks suggested they keep my Blackberry for 24 hours to make sense of this confusion. Never had it happened before. I laughed and thought to myself "this BlackBerry has my name on it. My free spirited soul cannot be contained... welcome to Afghanistan, Rima ! "