Dr. Khyber Tabesh, a colleague & friend got killed today morning in Kabul.
Bad news has a way of catching you completely off-guard. This one popped up on my screen as an email from Ali Khan Yousafzai. "SAD NEWS" warned the subject-line and the brief message went on to say that we could post our condolences to Khybar's office in Afghanistan.
The matter-of-fact, almost routine tone of the message was as shocking as the news itself. Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated last week in Rawalpindi. Today another 25 people had been killed outside Lahore High Court. Was this yet another explosion, yet another futile death in Kabul? It was as if the fundamental questions had ceased to matter - how did this happen? when? why would anybody want to kill a gentle doctor??
Sitting here is Delhi, all I know for a fact is that at this moment, there is a cold room somewhere in Kabul where corpse awaits burial. It is of a person I knew just a few months ago - I had shared meals with him, cracked jokes and walked with him the colorful lanes of Sukhumvit Soi in Bangkok.
It is also the frame of a man who broke down in tears the day he passed out of Kabul Medical University, grateful for being spared the fate of those who opposed the Taliban. He had worked as an interpreter during the bleak years, helping visiting journalists with their horror stories.
When I asked him if things were looking up back home, he had said, "Well, things are improving...I guess its better to be a slave (to America) rather than be the slave of a slave".
He loved to tell everybody about how he helped Kabir Khan with the bollywood movie, Kabul Express and of his rapport with the Indian actor John Abraham.
He reminded me of characters in Khaled Hosseini's "Kite Runner"and of everything that could once again be grand and glorious about Afghanistan.
It is a pity he is no more with us. I have no idea who or what killed him. But his death certainly diminishes hope for a sad country.
