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

Mumbaibased 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 AwardsThe book focusses on Kabul and Khans walks around that city It features stories from her interactions with a variety of people the places she visited and her experiencesShadow City A Woman Walks KabulIn an email chat with Middaycom Khan talks about the book her favorite authors and how she celebrated her win Edited excerpts from the interview are reproduced belowThe 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 KabulDuring 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 ldquoissuesrdquo 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 knewDid you have any preconceived notions about Kabul when you first visitedI 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 complicatedWhy did you decide not to have photographs in the bookPart of my effort was to let readers imagine the city for themselves to see it in their minds eye as they wandered through its spaces and its stories For me this seemed a more interesting way to visualize Kabul rather than through photographsBeing 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 healthI 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 newsYou must have interacted with a lot of people How did you decide on whom to include and whom to leave out of the bookInitially 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 readerTell us a little about your favorite authors and booksI 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 nonfiction 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 Mumbaibased novelist Shubhangi Swarup Her Latitudes of Longing is among the best works of fiction I have read recentlySince youre based in Mumbai how has your experience been in walking in the city and navigating public spaces in MumbaiDuring 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 afternoonHow did you celebrate your Stanford Dolman award win And what are you currently working onIt was quite late at night when I heard the news so I fell asleep hoping it would still be real in the morning Its 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