Ismail Khan is a castle in his stable corner of Afghanistan
- M J Akbar

HERAT — What comes first during breakfast at the Jihad House in Herat? The chicken or the egg? The chicken. If you can get chicken, why eat the egg?

The breakfast was laid out in the hall of a home on the hill. The view cascaded past a swimming pool, and slipped down to a commanding cantonment: Wrecked tanks and planes were piled to the left, while new armored cars and tanks gleamed on the right. This was the power center of the powerful. The blue mosque of Herat shimmered in the distance. A little askance, on the horizon, five towers of a lost madrasa rose like crooked fingers without a palm. The view swept out of the oldest town of the region, its age estimated at over 3,000 years, and to the great desert that moved remorselessly toward Mashad, a 100 km away, and into Iran.

The guest of honor at this breakfast was India’s External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha. His host was short, with a dapper shalwar-kameez and twinkling eyes that spoke of a kindly uncle rather than a name that had become a legend in a legendary city through two wars. His subjects, for that is what they are, call Ismail Khan the emir. Kabul calls him governor of the province. The world calls him a warlord, but takes care to do so out of hearing.

Can you have a warlord without a war? Yes. Because there will be a war if he is not made the lord.

When the Taleban were driven out of Herat in October last year after six noxious years, Ismail Khan did not wait for anyone’s permission before he moved into the governor’s house and office. Stories erupted that the "warlords" who had split Afghanistan with their civil wars after driving the Russians out and made the Taleban victories possible, were back.

Journalists, encouraged by the West, sniffed bad news. Ismail Khan allowed his twinkle to do the talking and dared anyone to remove him. He had fought two wars, the first against the Russians and the second against the Taleban. He had spent three years in a Kandahar jail, betrayed to the Taleban, and kept chained to a post until, in an episode that nourished the legend, he escaped.

The people of Herat acknowledged him as their leader. Ismail Khan did not need any permission from anyone in Kabul. He was in the tradition of the emirs who had ruled this region for thousands of years, in Bukhara and Balkh and Samarkand. He was in power by right of conquest and primogeniture of an emir.

He was sure of his place on the Afghan chessboard. Others might aspire to be kings in Kabul. Yet others might race and pounce with the rapacity and pace of a queen, the diagonal dignity of a bishop or the prance of a horse. Ismail Khan was a castle in his stable corner. No game could begin without him, and no game could end until he moved. Ismail Khan did not switch sides. Kabul switched sides to join him. That is why there was a third flag at the Herat airport when Ismail Khan gave Yashwant Sinha a welcome that Kabul could not have dared to script. The protocol was head of state style. Not to a head of state as much as from a head of state.

Ismail Khan’s ministers stood at the head of a receiving line that began near the foot of the United Nations aircraft that flew us over a near unending mountainscape from Kabul to Herat. Next was the guard of honor, two lines of soldiers offering arms and a sergeant straight out of a David Niven movie. Three flags fluttered. India’s, Afghanistan’s, and Ismail Khan’s. His colors had equal status. On his standard was inscribed that famous line from the Holy Qur’an: Nasrummin Allah-e-fatehun qareeb. (Allah brings victory toward you.)

Schoolgirls welcomed us with a song of freedom, and threw flowers at their guest (the petals might have reached Yashwant’s head had he been just a bit shorter). Our cavalcade set out for Jihad House, built by Ismail Khan to commemorate his victory over the Russians, then seized by the Taleban before it was retaken by the emir.

The road was lined on both sides by a cheering populace. Schoolgirls were clapping on orders, but were clearly excited at being part of an important event. At first this seemed normal enough. This was the kind of welcome that Jawaharlal Nehru used to organize for Bulgarin and Krushchev in the Fifties, and there was a Fifties air to this morning.

Bulgarin Sinha did not seem too harsh on the tongue either. Then a penny dropped. It occurred to me that girls were back in schools, wearing uniforms, carrying satchels, wreathed with smiles, after the hateful gender segregation in the Taleban years. The meaning of freedom was already visible.

The ceremony was the point and the substantive fact. The protocol offered to India’s foreign minister on his first visit to Herat was far above that given to any other VIP. The message was simple. Ismail Khan was a friend of India. It is easy to declare undying love within the closed walls of a single room. Doing it publicly was telling the world that you would honor a friendship that had stood the test of adversity. The sentiment has echoed in every dialogue that Yashwant has had.

When no one supported the Ismail Khans and the Ahmad Shah Masoods, when even the United States, working independently or through its ally Pakistan, was working toward a compromise with the Taleban, it was India alone that remained committed to a cause that seemed so marginal that it looked doomed.

Yashwant told his host that India, which never had a presence here, would soon open a consulate in Herat, a further instance of the city’s new importance, and by extension also evidence of Ismail Khan’s importance. Pakistan, which always had a presence, has been refused permission by Ismail Khan to reopen its consulate.

The Taleban is hated in cities like Herat because it is seen as a stooge government. The Jihad against crypto Communists in Kabul was valid because they had sold their country to the Russians. The Taleban were treated with similar contempt because they had sold their country to Pakistan. The Pakistani Army was the backbone of the Taleban’s strength. The Afghan will never accept foreign rule, neither from a neighbor to the north nor a neighbor to the east.

A car has the aura of a time machine in the bazaar that rings the wondrous blue mosque at the center of Herat, the greatest of the oasis-cities that nourished the great Silk Route. Nothing has changed in a thousand years in this bazaar. The mosque’s tiles, colors (blue is not a single color), designs and majesty seem as fresh as if they had first glittered yesterday. The shops and wooden huts could have been constructed a thousand years ago.

The faces are ageless. They belong to the Turks, Mongols, Iranians, Afghans and hundreds of tribes and groups that teem between the walls of China and the open spaces of Turkey. Eyes slant, and eyes glow like deep embers. Noses become hawks, and noses turn into sparrows. Cheekbones rise and cheekbones melt into flesh.

The buzz of the marketplace still echoes the oasis that once fed and rested caravans to give them the strength for another thousand miles, while in return it was told tales of wonders and battles taking place in distant lands. History was the breath of Herat.

Alexander and Changez Khan, Omar Khayyam and Marco Polo passed this way: Conquerors, traders, travelers, poets and persecutors, and lovers fulfilled or betrayed.

The mosque and the market were hives of different kinds but related by the romance of a town that knew the heartbeat of a world it nurtured, patronized, perhaps sneered at but in all cases encouraged it to go its way. While all through the day and night a sharp wind brought the dust of the surrounding desert to the oasis, leaving a fine film on face and cloth, so that a laugh or a smile or a tear had to cross two layers, one of skin and the other of dust. How many worlds live in Afghanistan, across how many centuries?

After two days in Afghanistan, I have one question. Would Michael Schumacher be able to outpace a taxi driver in Kabul between five and seven in the evening? I think not. We all know Schumacher can drive, but can he spurt? We know he can accelerate, but can he brake with a thud that connect wheel to teeth?

Schumacher might roar and the Corolla might rattle, but in a 10-yard dash between two immovable objects on the high street where would your money fetch better odds My money is on the Afghan. Schumacher can do a beautiful U-turn, but can he negotiate an O-turn that manages to bring the car back to its original position after the driver has discussed various options with the traffic policeman?

We all know that Schumacher thrills the world with his courage, but can he turn a single-file cavalcade into a war zone, swinging the car sideways while weaving it forward? Can Schumacher do what Aunt Agatha used to do to Bertie Wooster — make his heart leap up till it crashed against the teeth and returned slowly to base, gurgling helplessly on its way back. The Afghan can.

The only thing that Schumacher has in common with the Afghan driver is that both believe that the only cars on the road are those that are behind them. If they see a car in front they treat it as a personal insult. An Afghan can always drive at Le Mans. Can Schumacher do high street in Kabul?