‘I wanted to communicate not just the ‘issues’, but the feeling of being in Kabul’: Taran Khan

Taran Khan

Mumbai-based author Taran Khan recently won the 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year award for her debut book, 'Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul'. The award is one of the two prizes under the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.

The book focusses on Kabul, and Khan's walks around that city. It features stories from her interactions with a variety of people, the places she visited and her experiences.

Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul

In an email chat with Mid-day.com, Khan talks about the book, her favorite authors and how she celebrated her win. Edited excerpts from the interview are reproduced below.

The book is set between 2006 and 2013, and you had to visit Kabul often for your work. How did you get the idea for the book, and why did you decide to focus on your walks in Kabul?

During the months I spent in Kabul, I was writing for publications in India and abroad. Over time, I realized that the form of news or even feature writing was not able to accommodate the things I found really exciting or intriguing about the city. I wanted to be able to communicate not just the "issues", but the feeling of what it was like to be in Kabul. Like seeing the snowcapped mountains on the horizon, or hearing the everyday music of the streets. I was drawn to the idea of ​​walking as it allows readers to move around the physical spaces of Kabul, as well as wander its stories and memories, its myths and poetry. I was keen for the book to have this sense of exploration, so readers could connect to the city they were reading about, and relate it to the places they already knew.

Did you have any pre-conceived notions about Kabul when you first visited?

I suppose that most of my references were derived from mainstream media reportage of the time, so they centered on the recent history of war and violence. I was also interpreting the city through the easy frame of 'before and after the Taliban years'. Of course, I soon found out that the reality was much larger and more complicated.

Why did you decide not to have photographs in the book?

Part of my effort was to let readers imagine the city for themselves, to see it in their mind's eye as they wandered through its spaces and its stories. For me, this seemed a more interesting way to visualize Kabul rather than through photographs.

Being in the midst of a lot of shocking stories of destruction, the loss of innocent lives, how did you take care of your own mental health?

I was very fortunate in terms of having a lot of support from the people around me, including friends and colleagues, who had gone through challenging situations on their own. I also had the luxury of a return ticket, which was not available to most Kabulis I met. Part of being in Kabul was to always be aware that things could escalate very quickly, from normalcy to a situation of danger. But there were also a lot of other things to experience as well - it was not a space of uniform, unrelenting grimness, as it can appear in the news.

You must have interacted with a lot of people. How did you decide on whom to include and whom to leave out of the book?

Initially, I was keen to pack in as much as I could into the book, and my earlier manuscript drafts were much longer than the final version. There were some people I was sure I wanted to include from a relatively early stage, like Zafar Paiman, the archaeologist who had excavated a Buddhist monastery on the edge of Kabul. Others found their way into the pages more gradually. The key to taking such decisions for me was whether each voice added a different layer to the city, or revealed a different perspective for the reader.

Tell us a little about your favorite authors and books.

I grew up reading whatever I could find in the cupboards of my family home in Aligarh, and the authors I discovered then are still my comfort reads, like PG Wodehouse or Georgette Heyer. My preference is towards narrative non-fiction, like the work of Hisham Matar, or Svetlana Alexievich, whose book 'Zinky Boys', about the Soviet war in Afghanistan, is a powerful work of reportage. I am currently reading 'Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe' by Kapka Kassabova, a masterful excavation of memory, violence and place. I enjoy writers who push the limits of imagination and take risks with form, like Mumbai-based novelist Shubhangi Swarup. Her 'Latitudes of Longing' is among the best works of fiction I have read recently.

Since you're based in Mumbai, how has your experience been in walking in the city and navigating public spaces in Mumbai?

During the lockdown last year, I was struck by how many small details emerged on the streets when they were suddenly emptied of traffic. There were things I must have passed by hundreds of times, but had never noticed. This awareness is something I carry with me now when I walk around Mumbai. Being on foot, the megapolis is much more intimate. It is possible to stop and admire the details of an Art Deco balcony, or to listen to the strains of jazz playing in a Bandra lane on a Sunday afternoon.

How did you celebrate your Stanford Dolman award win? And what are you currently working on?

It was quite late at night when I heard the news, so I fell asleep hoping it would still be real in the morning! It's been wonderful to receive messages of support for the book, and to be a part of this community of writers and readers from across the world. I have a few projects in the works, and I hope to find a theme as intriguing as the city of Kabul, that will inspire me over the long and difficult process of creating a book.