Darra and Herat

[Mike McDermott]

As I mentioned yesterday on the indiaoverland.biz site, there's a film, and a book about the making of it, set in Darra. The film is called "Son of a Lion" and the book, "Warrior Poets", by a young Aussie ambo called Benjamin Gilmour. Well, he's young compared to us, but then again so are most people.

There's a review of the movie at http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2317832.htm
Benjamin Gilmour also has a website at http://benjamingilmour.com/

It looks as if he's in Herat right now, and has a photostream taken there and thereabouts on that site.

Those pix made me remember chasing a bikini clad beauty (I think she was a TV presenter or somesuch) around the pool at the (International?) hotel we used to stay at there, all the while being gazed at by the locals from the other side of the see-through fence. To adopt an American term, I think some may have been rooting for me; sadly though, she got away.

Mike

PS I have ordered the movie from his website. It's only $15. I might get the book too, but it's over twice as much.

[Vicar]

You will have to let us know what you think of the movie.

And about the TV presenter............... often the good ones get away. Or is it that they were better because they did get away?

[Mike McDermott]

>often the good ones get away ...

But not always! Anne is still in my evil clutches. Nyah ha ha.

[Mike McDermott]

Interesting timing! The video arrived yesterday, and I watched it last night. It was centred on the Afridi clan of Khyber Pass fame, which I think was the clan that I had that incident with in when I wrongly stopped to meet the Kochis passing through. They behaved then according to their code of honour, the Pashtunwali (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali) and gave me back everything they had taken from us when I went back with the frontier police.

The Pashtunwali code of granting asylum (nananwati) also explains both the sheltering of Osama Bin Laden, and the news that came through this morning - about 8 hours after I watched the film -of the sentencing of a Dr Afridi (by his name, presumably of that same clan) to 30 years jail for working with the CIA to kill OBL. At one point in the film, some Pathans were idly discussing whether they would break their code and take the huge reward being offered for OBL if they had granted him asylum. Well, it looks as though Dr Afridi may have done just that, but I can't conclude that from here.  

The film itself brought back many memories. Darra looked the same (although the gun shop was a far more humble affair than the one we used to visit). The only differences seemed to be the vintage of the cars, but fortunately the Paki Rockets were still in all their resplendent glory.  

It assumed a reasonable degree of emotional intelligence in the viewer, using a pictoral narrative (gestures etc) to take the movie forward. It was entirely in Pushtu (apart from the odd English word or phrase popping up occasionally, as it would there), but as usual that language barrier became no barrier after a while. This technique gradually drew me in and resulted in an insightful ride. It was about as far from another movie mentioned it it - the typically hyperviolent biffbang Rambo 3 - as it was possible to get, and as such a lot more realistic.

So; recommended, especially but not entirely for those of us who went to Darra. "Not entirely" because it deals with father-son conflicts and thereby has very broad appeal from that local base.

It was given four out of five stars by Australia's main critics; that is what I would give it for the general viewer as well, but five out of five for authenticity as far as I can recall from so long ago.

Mike