My life and My Story: The Life and Story of an Afghan Boy For Aryan, the most urgent and basic need was to encourage young thinking. He realised that it would be years of radical yet passive change, coupled with endless struggle that would bring about a balance between old and new thought. This would create an environment and culture that is comfortable. A culture and a way of life that is different and relatively progressive yet conforms or at least works well for Afghan society... By Aryan Aryanpour July-Sept. 1998 Lemar-Aftaab This is the story of a boy from the land of never-never, the land of contradiction, beauty and destruction. Looking back at his life's failures and achievements, a cord is struck with the old saying that "life was not meant to be easy" . Perhaps it is more so when one examines closely, who Aryan was. In his teenage years, Aryan grew up in now torn-apart capital of his homeland. He stood out among his peers. He was considered someone different, perhaps unique with a harbouring within himself, a touch of naivete. Yet he loved this rather than object to its recognition. He was a quiet, thoughtful, clear-minded, forthright , unorthodox, radical youth, an escapee from most teenagers of his generation. His escape was to something which was unknown to most of his generation; books and reading. Not long after reaching high school, he used to dwell at the language centres, libraries and places considered unfamiliar territories for most teenage boys or girls. Despite his difference, like most teenagers he was swimming in sea of thought, occasional despair and odd bravado. Nevertheless, It was not long before his life and destiny began to take shape, both at the hands of faith and his own. This separated him from the rest of the pack. Unlike other teenagers, who more than likely had no clear vision, aim or goal in their immature and young minds, he set out to formulate his goals and search for missing meaning. Born in a middle class technocrat family, he was lucky enough to have educated family members who brought him to the capital when he was five and immediately he was enrolled in one of the primitive suburban schools. This is where he grew up, to him, the best of the suburbs in the capital, even under harsh and difficult circumstances at times. He still happily projected himself as the "lucky Town boy" who took pride in rural people. He tried to relate to those he thought of as the Real, poor rural people. At the time it was becoming the trend for most youth to be drafted to underground semi-political (so-called political) movements, whereas he was not swayed to subscribe to any. No doubt, there was a wave of usual turbulence in his head, heart and mind, but he stayed away from them all his life. He had a clear conscience of politics and related matters, but his goals in life were far too great and important to be swallowed by it. In the passage of time politics would leave a sour taste in his mouth, as he watched the destruction of political forces amongst his family and his people. In fact, his displeasure with politics is beyond hatred. Like most parents of the time, his parents did not leave him immune to customary parental wishes and cultural discipline. His parents wanted him to accommodate their wishes and liking to the detriment of his own. His radical thinking contravened that of his parents and that of his society. He resisted the wishes of his parents without losing his respect for either his parents or his culture. He was certainly uncomfortable with certain cultural values, way of life and rigid thinking of the old generation. This was due to the fact that he was able to mix with some, wiser, educated and more matured people who enabled him to see alternatives. Such opportunities in his life influenced him greatly, and shaped his thinking on most matters of life like marriage, education, public relations, people, culture, language and other similar issues. In his time most teenagers were concerned with having the essential things in life rather then being preoccupied with serious matters . He was lucky in that his family was well off so that he would be allowed to indulge in things which inspired him. His homeland was a land of contradiction. On one hand there were masses of deprived, poor and disadvantage people, yet on the other hand there were a very small minority of privileged people who enjoyed a substantial life. To a small but growing number of educated people of the time it was an intolerable imbalance. Moreover, the dominant and more prevalent old thinking majority was hardly helping the situation. For Aryan, the most urgent and basic need was to encourage young thinking. He realised that it would be years of radical yet passive change, coupled with endless struggle that would bring about a balance between old and new thought. This would create an environment and culture that is comfortable. A culture and a way of life that is different and relatively progressive yet conforms or at least works well for Afghan society. He knew from the beginning that would be a tall order for him to be a such a force and he reaslised the change would have to begine with his person. That was simply the least he could do. While it was easy for him to develop his own way and approach to deal with daily life and normal issues, such as forced marriage, certain undesirable cultural values or certain other rigid rules, he still recognized the fact that most aspects of Afghan culture was very invaluable. It was this realisation that shaped his thought and being. He developed in himself a desire to follow and have an absolute respect for those aspects of his culture that were positive and good, yet disowned the bad and ugly ones.The whole basis of everything he had been thought in life until his early twenties shifted him to a different frame of mind and thinking than most of his youth and even peers. It was this background that swayed this boy to make some resolutions in his life. These resolutions later became the turning points and dramatically influenced his thinking, life, well-being and destiny. It was during his late years as a teenage boy that he made three resolutions in his life and decided to stick with them regardless of the odds against them. Furthermore, he made a firm decision to keep such resolution a secret and keep it to himself yet make every effort to achieve it. His obsession with these three resolutions would eventually become the three fundamental objectives or philosophy of his life. Acquiring, a Ph.D. was on top of the list. He rearly speaks of his two other ambitions and wanted to keep it a personnel items. Nevertheless, it was pretty odd for a teenage boy, with the kind of background he had to have such dreams. After years of significant adversaries, miseries, and tragedies, his ambition, determination and strong will to achieve his three ambitions never waned in him. He knew nothing and he accepted nothing as an alternative to fulfilling his life long dreams.In pursuit of his ambitions, he was able to successfully complete his first degree just before the tragic event of late 1970 which struck his homeland and sparked a succession of tragedies for him, his family and people. What followed is another story, until next time... Copyright © 1998 Aftaabzad Publications. All Rights Reserved. May not be duplicated or distributed in any form without permission.