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August 18, 2002
REVIEW: Yearning for El Dorado
“THE Taliban had ordered all the girls and women in Afghanistan to stay inside their homes. They even forbade girls to go to school. Parvana had had to leave her sixth grade class, and her sister Nooria was not allowed to go to her high school. Their mother had been kicked out of her job as a writer for a Kabul radio station. For more than a year now, they had all been stuck inside one room, along with five-year-old Maryam and two-year-old Ali.”
This and other similar stories have been a part of the lives of the families which survived under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The breadwinner encapsulates one such family’s saga of misfortune through the pen of Deborah Ellis. The subtitle of the narrative Starvation or survival — a girl’s life under Taliban rule pictures the struggle of a young Afghan girl Parvana to make it possible for her family to bear the burden of existence.
With the advent of the Taliban in Kabul, wild fanaticism took hold of the country in the name of religion. This led to the suppression of the rights of women, denial of academic pursuits, and a clampdown on progress and development.
All this and much more has been presented in The breadwinner. Parvana’s father, a foreign graduate, is taken to prison on account of his education. He is the only male member of the family who could have gone out to work, the other being a two-year-old son. The family’s older son was killed in the ongoing terrorism in Afghanistan. The Taliban law forbade women from going outdoors unaccompanied by a “Mahram”, let alone allowing them to work.
During these tumultuous times, Parvana, a girl of ten, charged with the spirit of Malali — the heroine of the Afghan-British wars — acts as the man in the family, both in words and in essence. The family disguises her as a boy so that she can earn morsels for them. Preoccupied with the thought of earning two meals a day, Parvana jumps from one job to another in the pursuit of livelihood. This responsibility even compels her to undertake the abominable task of grave digging.
In order to display the psychological manifestations of young minds in such a social scenario, the author presents the character of Shauzia, Parvana’s friend from the bygone days of school. Like Parvana, Shauzia is also doomed to disguise as a boy to beat the pangs of hunger. But she is in every way Parvana’s contrast when it comes to being responsible. She lives in the hope of leaving her family and Afghanistan some day for greener pastures abroad. She symbolizes the author’s belief in the aspirations of the suppressed young Afghan women, who still cherish the vision of an unblemished future for themselves.
The same conviction is expressed by the author in Nooria’s (Parvana’s sister) words, who looks forward to her marriage in Mazar-i-Sharif, a city in the north of Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban forces much later. “Look at my life here Parvana. I hate living under the Taliban. I’m tired of looking after the little ones. My school classes happen so seldom, they are of almost no value. There’s no future for me here. At least in Mazar I can go to school, walk the streets without having to wear a burqa, and get a job when I have completed school. Maybe in Mazar I can have some kind of a life.” However, as fate would have it the Taliban captured Mazar-i-Sharif right at the time of Nooria’s wedding.
The writer narrates such episodes to shead light on the brutalities of the Taliban government. Another heart-wrenching passage in the book is the one describing the release of Parvana’s father from prison as no charges could be proved against him. He is “barely recognizable” and his face is “drawn and pale”. He is in a shattered state physically while he is shattered in mind and spirit.
The breadwinner focuses not only upon the despondent state of people living under ruthless regimes, it also highlights the devastation of the Afghan cities after consecutive wars. Afghanistan has been the centre of interest for foreign invaders since antiquity by virtue of its strategic location in Central Asia. “Kabul has more landmines than flowers” it is observed. The contrast between the past and the present of Afghanistan emerges from the reminiscing of the various personalities.
The book is a statement on the ultimate factor which is the key to human survival — hope, which springs eternal in the human breast. The narrative conveys this positive message forcefully. The back flap of the volume states: “Even in despair lies hope...” One starts believing in that after meeting people like Parvana, her family, Ms Veera (a family friend), Shauzia and a plethora of Afghan characters, each of whom has her own stories to tell.
Writer’s email: saimaadil@hotmail.com
The breadwinner: starvation or survival - a girl’s life under Taliban rule
By Deborah Ellis
Oxford University Press, Great ClarendonStreet, Oxford 0X2 6DP
ISBN 0-19-275211-1 170pp. £4.99
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