This is Post #12 in the Series of posts “Going to Afghanistan”

Occasionally it is wise to clarify the progress of a story lest the important points are somehow missed in the passing.  Let us review what we know and add a bit of what at the time was perhaps unknown or even unknowable.

FWC is in Amritsar, India on September 27th of 1958, the date he was scheduled to arrive in Kabul, Afghanistan.  Unfortunately the plane, an Indian Airlines DC-3, has compass problems and cannot leave Amritsar.  Then adverse weather keeps the necessary parts from being flown in.  By Monday, after the events of the weekend, Fred decides to write a book or play describing the ordeal with the title, “Week End in Amritsar”.  In time the weather clears, the parts arrive, the compass is fixed and then, alas, more adverse weather keeps the newly repaired plane grounded.  Time passes, the weather does not.  FWC contracts diarrhea (at the time called “Delhi Belly” by the Americans in the region, but the name does not so easily apply as this is Amritsar).  In his distress he now contemplates changing the book title to “Weak End in Amritsar”.

Finally, on October 1, after a five day delay the Indian Airlines plane is ready for its early morning departure to Kabul.  On October the first Fred finally leaves Amritsar, India bound for Kabul, Afghanistan on Indian Airlines.  As the plane approaches Kabul the pilot is informed that he cannot land in Kabul before the Aeroflot plane carrying Russian president Voroshiloff (President of the USSR / CCCP), who is on a state visit to Afghanistan, lands.

The Russian plane is not expected to land before 12:00 noon, the pilot of the DC-3 is told, so the Indian Airlines plane cannot land in Kabul in the AM.  Fuel is an issue.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Indian Airlines can over-fly Pakistan on flights between India and Afghanistan, but cannot land at any Pakistani airports.  But, no one knows whether the plane has a right to re-enter Pakistan’s airspace without actually landing in Kabul.  Eventually instructions from Indian Airlines managers in New Delhi, India dictate the obvious, the flight must return to Amritsar.

Pakistan does not object (owing probably to an imminent coup which might be jeopardized by an international air incident) and will allow the plane to return to Kabul after a second departure of the day from Amritsar; this one in the early afternoon.

About 3:00 PM in the afternoon the Indian Airlines DC-3 finally arrives in the air above Kabul Airport and proceeds to make the customary three low passes over the dirt runway to scare the various wandering and grazing donkeys and camels from the approach path and off the landing field.  At 3:30 PM FWC actually does land in Kabul.  He is met by Snyder, Swanson, McGuire and Sharma of the United States Operations Mission (USOM / Afghanistan).

Despite aircraft mechanical failures, heavy winds, torrential rains, intestinal distress, Russian diplomats and Afghan diplomacy, international air protocols, pending coups, wayward donkeys, nomadic camels, and windblown dirt runways; Fred W. Clayton has arrived in Kabul.

Epilogue:

All traditional cities in Afghanistan were surrounded by a wall.  The city walls had no less or greater function for the city than the wall of a house has for the family at home.  Each house has at least one door, often more, the Pharsi word is “darwaza” which is also used to refer to the door (or gate) of a city.  In Qala Bist virtually all that is left of the city is the arch, the door, now forever open, for there is nothing left to hide, or steal, or rust, or rot or take away save a few potshards, coins and broken bits of weaponry.  Maybe there are still bones in Qala Bist, there probably are still bones.

Today the gates of our cities (in the United States) are guarded by the gates of Homeland Security and their cameras and their sensors.  Every person must pass through a gate in a distant city before being
permitted to pass through the portal of the destination city itself.  Sometime there are delays.  There is a pecking order regarding who is allowed through first.  It may at first seem that things have not changed in this world so much after all.

But, what Fred experienced was not overtly planned and organized by any given government or person.  It was more like an initiation, or an initiatory step that would encapsulate everything that one would need to know about Afghanistan before even setting foot in the place, provided that everything IS knowable; at least in metaphor or symbols, which as cell phones prove is a language so much more efficient that our own.

He immediately knew that there was something there, a story or a book or play or play on words and more, but almost as quickly events overtook him; the situation became overwhelming, Amritsar was becoming everything and “everything” seemed in the way of the goal which of course seemed to be Kabul at the time.  What might have been learned if he had of made his way to Lahore, learned more then of Kashmir, lingered longer at the Golden Temple or taken one of another thousand roads less taken?  He would probably say, “nothing” and add, “which is why I did just exactly what I did”.  And in that, maybe he would be right.

[Post originally written:  2010.03.04 / Thursday - A brief vignette]