Hippie shakes
From Mr Paul Miller Sir: I recognise the hippie types in David Giimour's article (Back to the Stoned Age', 20 October), but I must confess that it is far harder to recognise the 'gentle modernisation' that he attributes to King Zahir Shah's Afghanistan of 1971. As an ex-hippie converted to Christianity, I lived in Kabul from 1972 to 1974, and I recall too well the 'Tequila Sunrise' prison cells where Westerners grovelled; I recall too well 'Sammy', a young hotelier who talked with us every Sunday about the Christian faith, despite the lugubrious spies lurking in the corner with their air of sinister intent. Our Sunday meetings tragically ended after some months, due to Sammy's mysterious poisoning. I recall too well the Ramadan fasts when everybody in Kabul knew which restaurants still served daytime meals behind shuttered windows — meals eaten in heavy silence by patrons furtively glancing to left and right, as we shovelled in the forbidden food with the air of teenagers sneaking smokes behind the school building; but teenagers drained of any sense of adolescent, mischievous fun, our only spice being the dull fear eating our guts.
Paul Miller
Oxford
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