Something There: Love, War, Basketball, and Afghanistan[1]

An Antidotal Memoir[2]

Naeem Inayatullah

Ithaca College

“The goal of encouraging…historical sympathy is achieved not by telling people what has been lost but by getting people to see what is there.”[3]

If we can find something in “nothing” then we can find something even in those that seek to destroy all “nothings.”

In November 2001, the town of Ithaca premiered Jung (War): In the Land of the Mujaheddin, a film that documents how Italian doctors created a humanitarian hospital in war torn Afghanistan. Afterwards, in the conversation that I had agreed to facilitate, I was unable to evoke much beyond the usual sense of helpless guilt and hollow moral stridency that comes from seeing others suffer. Suspecting that just below their easy sympathy lay hidden assimilationist presumptions, I pressed the audience with these questions: Is there anything we need from Afghans, Afghan cultures, Afghanistan? Can we find some lack only they can fill? If not, what impulse stops us from simply accepting the loss of this culture? Even those few who had passed through Afghanistan seemed baffled by this line of thinking. Finding no takers, it occurred to me then that I could pose these questions to myself.

Gordon College provided little competition on our home court. In the winter of 1972, it would have been a short drive from their campus in Rawalpindi to ours in Islamabad. Crossing into the compound of the International School of Islamabad (ISI), they entered a recognizable yet unfamiliar and oddly heterogeneous space -- something not-America and not-Pakistan. Their bodies must have sensed and absorbed the gravity of the uneven, overlaying, and jagged cultural force fields flowing, protruding, infringing, and breaking all around. On the one hand, there were the smooth soft polished brick red of the octagonal campus walls, with inner courtyards centered by star shaped fountains beds and waterless wading pools; windows from floor to ceiling, carpeted classrooms, sports fields expanding into the distance, and the large yellow, not blue, school buses waiting in the too large parking lot. Not to mention the not-yet-men boys, with hair long and so well-groomed that the desire to touch it was leashed only by the all powerful straps of decorum. And I imagine that after viewing the miniskirt clad teenage girls, the unbearably mundane displays of sexual affection, hyper-groomed boys, and the bouncing, shouting, infinitely beaming cheerleaders, they put away these snapshots and probed them only once they were out of the compound inside their blue bus.[4] Without the topographic charts and compass needed to navigate the plate tectonics of ISI, their psychic vigor must have been sapped before tip-up. But there was more; the basketball court itself was surrounded -- by those on the bleachers and others sitting on the ground.

What, I wonder, did the Gordon College players make of the fact that more than a few times the bleacher crowd – students, teachers, and parents – burst into a medley of a badly copied but emphatic Urdu cheer:

Leader:

Aag-thay,

Bagh-thay,

Chuchuup Chapackthay,

Crowd:

TAH!

Leader:

Chapackthay

Crowd:

TAH!

Leader:

Chapackthay

Crowd:

TAH!

Our fans had learned it on a road trip from the fans of Lahore American School, an institution that had no choice but to be embedded in a city measuring its age in millennia. For those in our bleachers, this cheer was nothing similar to say, “Craig, Craig, He’s our Man; If he Can’t do it, Chris Can…” More so, like much of the Urdu learned by my teammates and classmates, it was part of a tainted language or a “pidgin” absorbed in a thin contact zone. The Gordon College players were sure to have known the cheer and to have wondered if this double “call and response” was imitative flattery or if it was one more spin spun for their disorientation.

On the other hand, while waiting for the ball to go up, if they turned their eyes to the West they saw Margalla Hills – gateway to Peshawar, the Khyber Pass, and Kabul. Or if they followed the Hills to the North, they would find the greatest mountains on the planet with K2, Nanga Parbat, Rakaposhi, and Tirich Mir soaring into the sky. Nearby, to the east jutted the high continent composed of Kashmir, Nepal, Tibet, Sikkim, and Bhutan. Like the lines on the court, they would have known this geography.

Another sign of familiarity: Sitting under the South basket were twenty, sometimes thirty, men wearing different shades of either Shalwar Kamiz or pants and shirts. Ranging from their twenties to their fifties these were the servants of the school: chaukidars, malis, bearers, typists, clerks, janitors, drivers, P.E. assistants, and handymen. They congregated for home games. If you are thinking that they secretly cheered for Gordon College you anticipate well but miss some of the complexity. Because, you see, they rooted for me.

Not for the Pakistani team, for that risked severing them from the economy of ISI. Nor did they seem especially inclined to show support for us. But when I did something notable, they exhaled. They risked releasing murmurs, even gesticulation, thinking perhaps that in cheering for me they at least cheered for a home team player. Could there be harm in that?

Distant as I was from them, I pretended not to notice -- even if a part of me shone in their pride. The triangular tension between those clothed in garments of service and me with my typical Punjabi features framed by long black locks kept in place by the blue and white threaded headbands lovingly made by the cheerleaders – all under the supervision of the white faces of power -- must have registered on the Gordon College players. Just as did the perfect dry heat of the winter sun on our bare skins.

And then there was my beard – an outgrowth of the internalized rage that I could not vent on my school. My parents understood the danger. The beard did not withstand the directives of my father and the far more effective pleas of my mother. The Gordon College players, though, took my beard to be a sign of meditative depth – “Sufi Saab, aup ney kamal kur theia.” Meaning: Sufi sir, you’ve done an amazing thing.” That comment came from the player who was guarding me after I connected on a no-look behind the back bounce pass from the key to a base line cutting Tom Morgan. It was indeed a good pass, but not unusual; Craig Steiger and I were given creative license by our two coaches – Stu Young the fastest, quickest, and most graceful human being I have ever known, and Gordon Lindsay, a man in search of wisdom in whom the art of teaching shown in his every gesture. “Sufi” can refer to anyone wearing a beard but also connotes a sense of respect due to someone who ponders the mystical. Perhaps the Gordon College player meant to compliment my deft and lucky pass, or perhaps he meant to comment on my personal rooting section, or perhaps he meant my seeming ability to read the pathways in this rupturing hybridized space. I smiled, hoping he would accept my silence. It would be nearly thirty years before I would find words -- these words -- to respond.

The year before, under Stu Young, we had traveled ten minutes to play at a nearby school in Model Town – a northern suburb of Rawalpindi. The court was inside a crowded compound of two story buildings. There were perhaps two hundred students watching but it felt like double that. Or maybe we felt crowded because of the cheering, screaming, and unconstrained hostility surrounding us. The physicality of the game became its defining feature, a skirmish becoming true to itself. When, finally, an opposing player rode Tom Morgan’s head into a nearby wall we did not look for exits -- our fates, we knew, would be decided immediately.

Near his father, Tom betrayed miniscule twitches of fear. This could seem puzzling since he was a six foot three beautifully sculpted young man of tremendous strength and athleticism. From a distance you might mistake Tom as the colonel’s bodyguard. But the colonel was not just the ranking U.S. military officer in Islamabad. Somehow he let you know that in his hands he held terrible final power. Tom was usually a sweet natured fellow whom we taunted when we needed his best game. Sufficiently enraged Tom could control the boards and harass any player, big or small, into panic. When he lost his temper – his square-jawed, crew-cut haired, pink skinned head would remind me of a freshly cut beet. Those with sense dispersed without pausing to blink. Running was not a good bet since Tom was as fast as he was strong. The strategy, we all knew, was to get out of his vision and hope that he either aimed himself at someone else or that he defused himself before he put his hands on you.

With the offending player still hovering near him, Tom’s face radiated that color of disaster. We waited for the decisions -- Tom’s, his fouler’s, and the crowd’s. Fists clenched, he looked only at us, locking us in and pleading: “help me do this right.” Coach Young, I assume, had run to get the bus driver. Before free-throws could be shot our team was sitting in the Tayota mini-bus speeding back on the highway towards Margalla Hills and Zero Point. At cruising speed, Coach Young broke the silence of our near brush with god knows what. Always with a smile, as if he had cheated death at an early age, he said: “Do you want to hear a cheer that I learned for a situation like this?” As one, we thought: “A situation like this? Has anybody ever been in a situation like this?” “It goes like this,” he said:: “Shit! Shit! Shit!…”

Is that a kind of pidgin? I don’t know. But for the rest of the twenty minute ride back to our homes, we chanted the mantra of a spirit somehow enlivened by defeat: Shit! Shit! Shit! Coach Young had risked the contact zone and it had not gone well.

I was not the only Pakistani at ISI, not even the only Pakistani in our senior class of twenty three. But as starting guard and a recognized jock, I did have a larger profile. Most of us “locals” were there due to the largesse of the school, and more precisely, to the U.S.’s posture of charitable condescension towards Pakistan. After three years working for his doctorate in Bloomington, Indiana, and then a year in Flushing, Queens, followed by more than two years in Geneva Switzerland, my father had given up his post with the UNDP in 1970 and accepted a position to found the international relations program at Islamabad University. Soon after arriving in Rawalpindi, my brothers had gained admittance to St. Mary’s, but I had been rejected. The length of my recently chopped but still too long hair and my aggressive and sulking body posture were deemed “subversive” by Father Burn – the British headmaster. Even after further cutting, no Pakistani school would take me. Eventually, my father and I traveled to ISI, where I was accepted and the tuition – twelve times my father’s yearly gross income – was waived. It was a small but growing school which even in 1973, my senior year, had no more than 300 students from K to 12.

While my rejection by Pakistani schools had been explicit, my acceptance into ISI did not mean, of course, entry into the mainstreams of American and European culture within it. There is Yale and then there is Yale of the Bushes.

My senior year we had two great coaches and a well fashioned team. At center was the soft spoken and thoughtful captain, Mark Wood, who would later join the Merchant Marine and then the Navy. At six-three, he was lean with long arms, owned a reliable jump-shot, and was a great defensive presence who could muscle rebounds away from stronger players. At one forward was Tom Morgan, a physical specimen – although he reminded me that at his D.C. school he was considered average in most ways. At the other forward there was competition between the younger Ron Rice and the older Chris Herse. Ron was more reliable but inexperienced as a freshman; Chris was versatile but did not bring focus every day. Ron would become a Professor of Agronomy in Florida; Chris a firefighter in California. Craig Steiger, at six foot and 160 pounds was a guard whose age at 14 belied his confidence, leadership, and knowledge of the game. His goal in life was to play professional basketball. He had creative dribbling skills, was a keen passer, tenacious on defense, and was a natural leader. Even Tom would listen to him. Craig would go to Dartmouth then Harvard Business School. I was the smallest of the starting five, but with the fastest legs and the quickest hands. Craig and I played constantly both in and off season at his house – the house that his mother would use as the base for the Islamabad re-election campaign of Richard Nixon. We were competitive and close, knowing at all times where the other one would be on the court. The only occasions we did not get along were when he felt I was trying to dictate flow instead of playing within the team. Bart Hellemans, a five foot six fire-plug and determined lefty from Belgium would spell Craig or I at guard or would come in when I would get in foul trouble. Bart was the son of the Belgium Ambassador. The others were sons of USAID employees, Embassy staff, USIS officers, and, no doubt – although we did not consider such things at the time – of intelligence officers. Politics were definitive but, of course, had to be ignored so that we could imagine living out our high school lives.

Everyone knew their roles and we were producing an undefeated season. We had beaten the various men’s teams composed of marines who guard the U.S. embassy, and the younger men from USAID, the Embassies, and other international organizations. We had beaten Gordon College, the Karachi American School (KAS), the Lahore American School (LAS), and later in the year ending tournament, where we would go undefeated, we would also beat the Muree Christian School (MCS), and the American International School of Kabul (AISK). But the tournament in late March -- the summit of our emotional and social hopes --was ahead of us. As a tune-up for the tournament and as a part of the inter-life of our five schools – KAS, LAS, AISK, MCS, and ISI -- we took a trip to Kabul where we were scheduled to play three teams: Ghazni, University of Kabul, and AISK. We did not know that we would be traveling the paths taken by some of the greatest conquerors known to history; conquerors who would find on this road what conquerors secretly hope for: the warm liquid humility that comes from their own inevitable defeat.

The plan was to fly from Islamabad to Peshawar and then on to Kabul. The problem was that to leave and re-enter Pakistan, Amjad Zaman (the other Pakistani on the team) and I would need a “NOC” – a no-objection certificate. Seemingly in league with Western Orientalists, the Pakistan Government made it nearly impossible for its own citizens to travel and know their country. Extracting these certificates from the teeth of the governmental bureaucracy was a job left to the always-able Stu Young. On the day of the flight, the “NOC” was, of course, not ready. Amjad and I were left behind. But Stu was not yet done. He arranged things, a story I will need to extract from Mr. Young one day, so that Amjad and I would somehow still make it to Kabul. The head driver put us in a school-owned Toyota, and, with the skill and gambling that would have left Mario Andretti in awe, drove us from Islamabad, past the Attock Fort completed by Akbar in 1585 where the Kabul and Indus rivers meet, and on to Peshawar. It was the second must amazing feat of driving I would experience. More than twenty years later it would be outdone by an 18 hour adventure from Skardu to Islamabad with my wife and I sharing the front seat of a jeep next to one of my soon to be heroes, Ismail – the five foot two manifestation of serenity: our driver, guide, body guard, and rescuer. But that, I am sorry to say, is another story.

Arriving in Peshawar, our driver handed us off to two Afghan Pushtoons. Let’s stop to ponder this for a minute. You may be thinking, -- that was a different world.[5] Can we now imagine an American teacher giving custody of two in his charges to strangers crossing the Khyber Pass in order to play a basketball game? To be befuddled by this question, however, is not to understand the sense of honor – nang -- that serves as one part of the binding force of the anarchical society that ranges from the Attock bridge to Kabul. This is the land of the Pushtoons, a mountainous area containing and creating a culture of people who have never paid taxes to a conqueror: not Alexander, not Jengis Khan, not any of the Mughuls, not Ranjit Singh, not the British, and not any government of Pakistan or Afghanistan. These days, whether we admit it or not, assessing the value of these people comes too easily to us. Even the keen eye of the brilliant Iranian filmmaker Mosen Makmalbaf regards their anarchy as a mere absence: of unity, of nationalism, and of modernity.[6] “Nothing of value” is the screen he and we plaster over the Pushtoon and Afghan cultural topography – that is, before and after we have flattened it with bombs. The Pushtoons serve as today’s (but only today’s) symbol for an all purpose abstract lack. The more abstract the lack, the wolf might say, the better for us to project our civilizing fantasies.