Scan barcode
redheadreading's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.75
Particularly enjoyed the chapter on cinema, the audiobook narrator for this was great too! Helped me get a sense of place.
tillybh's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
rebelbooksta's review against another edition
5.0
A truthful, first-hand escapade penned into an evocative travelogue.
The war-ravaged Afghanistan is a country out of reach for me. Maybe, one day, I will tread on a similar journey as Taran. It seems like an alienated parallel universe of permanent war and unspeakable injustices. An induced magnet by worldly superpowers for their obsessive shelling, perpetual air strikes, land mines and bombings. Sad truths.
My first encounter with Afghanistan was through literature. Rabindranath Tagore's Kabulimama (Kabuliwallah), and then Khaled Hosseini's heart-wrenching stories: The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, And The Mountains echoed. Again through Taran's literary depiction of Afghanistan.
I think I agree with Taran that a woman with a mind of her own, walking the unfamiliar streets (alone) is empowering. Shatters the policing on woman's freedom and the most basic form of transportation. And this is exactly what I tell myself in new terrains: To keep walking. The joy of discovering new spots, stopping whenever and wherever and seeking adventures on foot is indescribable. An intimate game of lost and found. She brought back memories of me losing my way and mobile reception as I crossed borders. My favourite line, "His hands on my shoulders, the road behind us. 'Hazar baar boro', he said in Persian. 'Saad hazar baar biya.' [Go a thousand times. Return a hundred thousand times.]."
Taran discovers libraries, bookshops, excavation sites, graveyards of deafening silence, the film fanaticism in the cinemas, naïve romances, extravagant Kabuli weddings, poetry to express the deep-seated sorrows, and the inevitable submission to opium when the western forces intervened the country. I enjoyed the chapter on 'Walking With Djinns'. The characters strived to be normal. "If I am taking it, I have no fear. The aeroplanes seem like butterflies." And the sense of normalcy meant to become numb, desensitize the trauma and conjure up hallucinations to temporarily erase the land getting torn down in the background.
Koh-e-Sher Darwaza and Koh-e-Asmai scale the Kabuli horizons (and the vision of the readers) on either sides with a bridge suspended over a river that cuts through forming the landscape to the amnesic city. Between the Taliban and the U.S forces or their predecessors the Soviet intrusions, which of these would you consider as the lesser evil of the unbridled forces of evils present? The rest of us watched in silence just like we did for the rest of the war crimes in the world. At the end of it women and children are the ravaged pawns in this profiteering businesses of war.
I enjoyed Taran's flashbacks of her life in Aligarh and the timely reminders given to her by her beloved late grandfather Baba. So beautiful how she drew inspirations from her own life in Aligarh. It is like carrying a piece of her home with her. She built the connection of the silent fight for freedom from her world to Kabul. They somewhat breathed life and warmth into the stories people she met at the nooks and corners of Kabul. She meticulously unearthed the layers of the systematic involvement in this gross humanitarian crisis. While embodying the sound and sights capes she witnessed by foot. Oh! With a map to match your imaginations too!
Thanks to Taran, I learnt about the Afghani Elvis - Ahmad Zahir. Read the last 3 chapters with his playlist of urdu songs in my background. Man, what a voice! Felt I was instantly teleported to Kabul.
This is a story of the people by the people trying to thrive on this state of permanence : torrential wars, rippling trauma and collective grief. Shadow City is a deepfelt poignant and introspective telling through an unfiltered lens. Not about tragedy. But about life and livelihoods beyond it. An investigative journalism by a sensitive and compassionate journalist. This is a relevant and potent read for today especially that the political currents are shifting in Afghanistan. 'Bood, nabood.'
#tarannkhan #tarankhan #shadowcity #shadowcityawomanwalkskabul #awomanwalkskabul #penguinrandomhouse #penguinindia #vintagepenguin #igreads #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #read #book #investigativejournalism #travelogue #travelmemoir #kabul #afghanistan #afghanlit #indianlit #whatareyoureadingsg #singaporereads #sgreads #readingnationsg #padron #padroncigars #sotl #botl #cigar #cigaraficionado
The war-ravaged Afghanistan is a country out of reach for me. Maybe, one day, I will tread on a similar journey as Taran. It seems like an alienated parallel universe of permanent war and unspeakable injustices. An induced magnet by worldly superpowers for their obsessive shelling, perpetual air strikes, land mines and bombings. Sad truths.
My first encounter with Afghanistan was through literature. Rabindranath Tagore's Kabulimama (Kabuliwallah), and then Khaled Hosseini's heart-wrenching stories: The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, And The Mountains echoed. Again through Taran's literary depiction of Afghanistan.
I think I agree with Taran that a woman with a mind of her own, walking the unfamiliar streets (alone) is empowering. Shatters the policing on woman's freedom and the most basic form of transportation. And this is exactly what I tell myself in new terrains: To keep walking. The joy of discovering new spots, stopping whenever and wherever and seeking adventures on foot is indescribable. An intimate game of lost and found. She brought back memories of me losing my way and mobile reception as I crossed borders. My favourite line, "His hands on my shoulders, the road behind us. 'Hazar baar boro', he said in Persian. 'Saad hazar baar biya.' [Go a thousand times. Return a hundred thousand times.]."
Taran discovers libraries, bookshops, excavation sites, graveyards of deafening silence, the film fanaticism in the cinemas, naïve romances, extravagant Kabuli weddings, poetry to express the deep-seated sorrows, and the inevitable submission to opium when the western forces intervened the country. I enjoyed the chapter on 'Walking With Djinns'. The characters strived to be normal. "If I am taking it, I have no fear. The aeroplanes seem like butterflies." And the sense of normalcy meant to become numb, desensitize the trauma and conjure up hallucinations to temporarily erase the land getting torn down in the background.
Koh-e-Sher Darwaza and Koh-e-Asmai scale the Kabuli horizons (and the vision of the readers) on either sides with a bridge suspended over a river that cuts through forming the landscape to the amnesic city. Between the Taliban and the U.S forces or their predecessors the Soviet intrusions, which of these would you consider as the lesser evil of the unbridled forces of evils present? The rest of us watched in silence just like we did for the rest of the war crimes in the world. At the end of it women and children are the ravaged pawns in this profiteering businesses of war.
I enjoyed Taran's flashbacks of her life in Aligarh and the timely reminders given to her by her beloved late grandfather Baba. So beautiful how she drew inspirations from her own life in Aligarh. It is like carrying a piece of her home with her. She built the connection of the silent fight for freedom from her world to Kabul. They somewhat breathed life and warmth into the stories people she met at the nooks and corners of Kabul. She meticulously unearthed the layers of the systematic involvement in this gross humanitarian crisis. While embodying the sound and sights capes she witnessed by foot. Oh! With a map to match your imaginations too!
Thanks to Taran, I learnt about the Afghani Elvis - Ahmad Zahir. Read the last 3 chapters with his playlist of urdu songs in my background. Man, what a voice! Felt I was instantly teleported to Kabul.
This is a story of the people by the people trying to thrive on this state of permanence : torrential wars, rippling trauma and collective grief. Shadow City is a deepfelt poignant and introspective telling through an unfiltered lens. Not about tragedy. But about life and livelihoods beyond it. An investigative journalism by a sensitive and compassionate journalist. This is a relevant and potent read for today especially that the political currents are shifting in Afghanistan. 'Bood, nabood.'
#tarannkhan #tarankhan #shadowcity #shadowcityawomanwalkskabul #awomanwalkskabul #penguinrandomhouse #penguinindia #vintagepenguin #igreads #bookstagram #booksofinstagram #read #book #investigativejournalism #travelogue #travelmemoir #kabul #afghanistan #afghanlit #indianlit #whatareyoureadingsg #singaporereads #sgreads #readingnationsg #padron #padroncigars #sotl #botl #cigar #cigaraficionado
emilybh's review against another edition
4.0
This book is an account of walking through Kabul - both its recent history and distant past. Khan explores the city's contradictions through a focus on particular spaces, from wedding halls and cinemas, to the archives, ruins and graveyards that are found beside new developments and secure compounds. Whilst this book was first published in 2019, and doesn't take in the impact of the last 2 years on the city, it's still an interesting look at its cultural geography.
boipoka's review against another edition
3.25
I think my problem with this book was that I went in with unrealistic expectations. Based on the blurb and marketing, I expected to feel like I was walking the streets of Kabul myself, while learning about its ancient and modern history. Or at least an witness testimony of how Kabul was, under the ISAF administration. Instead I got seven loosely connected articles meditating on various aspects of life in early 21st century Kabul - with very little history/documentation, and even less walking.
Honestly, this was more a memoir than a travelogue or journalistic work - and I probably would have enjoyed this if I went in expecting a memoir. The parallels the author draws between her experiences in Aligarh and Kabul were interesting, but I wasn't in the mood for that. Instead of engaging with her thoughts and contrasting my own experiences, I was merely screaming in my head "Yes, yes, conservative religious households are the same everywhere, I already knew that. When are we actually going to *walk* in Kabul!?" The figure of her grandfather, a fluent speaker of Persian, and an admirer of early to mid 20th century Kabul was also interesting - but the book focused way too much on their personal connection, and way too little on the broader historical context. I wanted to know more about the city that he admired, the city that was the refuge of so many Indian revolutionaries and so eulogized in literature of the time - and I wanted to know how everything fell apart (& maybe I really wanted to know if we in India are heading towards falling apart into a hateful religious theocracy too - but that's neither here nor there). Instead, I got pictures of her grandfather's library. Which is lovely, but not what I was here for! The anecdotes that were most interesting to me - like the story of the girls who spent the Taliban years watching Bollywood movies in hiding; the women who unveil and dance with abandon at every wedding; the film archives that survived the Taliban - was glossed over, to make room for the author's life experiences. To be fair to her, those experiences weren't irrelevant and shoved in - and are perfectly fine in a memoir. But that's not how this book was marketed (to me, at least).
Overall, it's a beautiful and poignant memoir of a woman who has developed a special relationship with the city of Kabul. Go in with that expectation and you'll probably enjoy the book. But if you expect any actual walking, any deep exploration of Afghanistan's history (or present), anything other than surface level anecdotes about the author's time in Afghanistan, you'll probably be disappointed. At least, I was
Honestly, this was more a memoir than a travelogue or journalistic work - and I probably would have enjoyed this if I went in expecting a memoir. The parallels the author draws between her experiences in Aligarh and Kabul were interesting, but I wasn't in the mood for that. Instead of engaging with her thoughts and contrasting my own experiences, I was merely screaming in my head "Yes, yes, conservative religious households are the same everywhere, I already knew that. When are we actually going to *walk* in Kabul!?" The figure of her grandfather, a fluent speaker of Persian, and an admirer of early to mid 20th century Kabul was also interesting - but the book focused way too much on their personal connection, and way too little on the broader historical context. I wanted to know more about the city that he admired, the city that was the refuge of so many Indian revolutionaries and so eulogized in literature of the time - and I wanted to know how everything fell apart (& maybe I really wanted to know if we in India are heading towards falling apart into a hateful religious theocracy too - but that's neither here nor there). Instead, I got pictures of her grandfather's library. Which is lovely, but not what I was here for! The anecdotes that were most interesting to me - like the story of the girls who spent the Taliban years watching Bollywood movies in hiding; the women who unveil and dance with abandon at every wedding; the film archives that survived the Taliban - was glossed over, to make room for the author's life experiences. To be fair to her, those experiences weren't irrelevant and shoved in - and are perfectly fine in a memoir. But that's not how this book was marketed (to me, at least).
Overall, it's a beautiful and poignant memoir of a woman who has developed a special relationship with the city of Kabul. Go in with that expectation and you'll probably enjoy the book. But if you expect any actual walking, any deep exploration of Afghanistan's history (or present), anything other than surface level anecdotes about the author's time in Afghanistan, you'll probably be disappointed. At least, I was
majya's review against another edition
challenging
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
“It was a reminder that we live on invisible fault lines, and arbitrary borders can appear anywhere.”
This book was beautiful. We are so good at othering what we don’t understand, and in this collection, Khan does just the opposite. Her love for Kabul is apparent on every page as she speaks about the places and the people she has met in her time there. Seeing Kabul through her eyes was so sweet and extremely refreshing from the normal poverty and war torn country tropes it is usually presented as. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
This book was beautiful. We are so good at othering what we don’t understand, and in this collection, Khan does just the opposite. Her love for Kabul is apparent on every page as she speaks about the places and the people she has met in her time there. Seeing Kabul through her eyes was so sweet and extremely refreshing from the normal poverty and war torn country tropes it is usually presented as. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.