Kabul:
As he weaves his way around the streets of Kabul, my taxi driver, Rehmat, who is in his 40s, describes his own journey.
"While I was with the Taliban, my children and wife feared for me. Before I got married, I was a soldier with the Mujahideen, and my parents worried about me. Every day they feared for my life," he says.
I should be worried about mine, he adds. "If you are a journalist and you die in a suicide attack, I will be very sad," he adds matter-of-factly. In this city of war, it's best to speak one's mind.
He pulls out a photograph of himself, much younger, standing in front of a poppy field. After quitting the Mujahideen, he became a poppy farmer in the 90s, and then worked for the Taliban till 2003. And then he couldn't take it anymore - the acts of violence against women, the suicide killings, the hatred.
He also had five children by now - two sons and three daughters. And he couldn't face them knowing that he was living a life that may allow them to judge him a lesser man.
Rehmat is from Kandahar, where the Taliban recruit heavily and actively. He bought into the line they sold him - that he would be God's soldier, and not any warlord's.
A devout Muslim, Rahmat tells us the Taliban encounters he was often forced to participate in were inhuman, and often went against his religious principles. So one day, he decided to opt out. That meant leaving his village in Kandahar, and moving to Kabul.
He earned more as a poppy farmer. But now he sleeps through the night without a troubled conscience, and that's enough compensation, he says. "I don't want to lose my children to the insurgency," he says as he offers me a cup of tea in his home.
Like any other father, he prays hardest now for his children's future. He wants them to stay in Afghanistan, but in a country that is tolerant and free of its corrupt warlords and extremism.
"The happiest moment of my life was when my son called up and said he had topped his class. I was so happy. I didn't want anything else. I forgot all the suffering and sadness. I felt like I had the whole world."
"While I was with the Taliban, my children and wife feared for me. Before I got married, I was a soldier with the Mujahideen, and my parents worried about me. Every day they feared for my life," he says.
I should be worried about mine, he adds. "If you are a journalist and you die in a suicide attack, I will be very sad," he adds matter-of-factly. In this city of war, it's best to speak one's mind.
He pulls out a photograph of himself, much younger, standing in front of a poppy field. After quitting the Mujahideen, he became a poppy farmer in the 90s, and then worked for the Taliban till 2003. And then he couldn't take it anymore - the acts of violence against women, the suicide killings, the hatred.
He also had five children by now - two sons and three daughters. And he couldn't face them knowing that he was living a life that may allow them to judge him a lesser man.
Rehmat is from Kandahar, where the Taliban recruit heavily and actively. He bought into the line they sold him - that he would be God's soldier, and not any warlord's.
A devout Muslim, Rahmat tells us the Taliban encounters he was often forced to participate in were inhuman, and often went against his religious principles. So one day, he decided to opt out. That meant leaving his village in Kandahar, and moving to Kabul.
He earned more as a poppy farmer. But now he sleeps through the night without a troubled conscience, and that's enough compensation, he says. "I don't want to lose my children to the insurgency," he says as he offers me a cup of tea in his home.
Like any other father, he prays hardest now for his children's future. He wants them to stay in Afghanistan, but in a country that is tolerant and free of its corrupt warlords and extremism.
"The happiest moment of my life was when my son called up and said he had topped his class. I was so happy. I didn't want anything else. I forgot all the suffering and sadness. I felt like I had the whole world."
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