By Ziba Balkhi
Mursal Badakhsh finds solace in strumming her guitar. As the soothing sounds fill her room, she escapes the difficulties of life at home and quiets her noisy mind.
After the restrictions of the Taliban were introduced, Mursal decided to teach herself to play the guitar. “It is my childhood dream,” she says. “I have been interested in singing and playing guitar since I was five years old, and I really want to make this dream come true.”
From the Taliban’s perspective, music is forbidden and prohibited. After seizing control of Afghanistan, they closed music clubs, banned live music performances, and in some places destroyed instruments. They’ve also cracked down on music production, broadcasting, and music publication through television and radio. Music and songs have been replaced by Taranas, the Taliban’s favorite songs without instruments. It’s all reminiscent of the Taliban reign of the 1990s.
Mursal had hoped to study in the music department and learn to teach guitar professionally after passing the university entrance exam, but then the previous government fell. “When I graduated school, unfortunately the Taliban came and the music courses were closed,” she says. “I didn’t get the chance to attend the course.”
Despite the music ban, Mursal has not given up on her dream. Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, she has been learning to play the guitar at home by watching instructional videos on YouTube. “I thought to myself, why not learn music by myself? And that’s why I started playing guitar and singing as an amateur,” she says. “I watched videos on YouTube until I learned how to play. Sometimes I also sing songs.”
Her brother brought her the guitar from Turkey. When the Taliban began a period of house-to-house searches in Balkh, Mursal hid her guitar in fear.
“I was afraid the Taliban would find my guitar, break it, or take my father with them,” she says. “This fear tormented me every day [of the sea.”
Mursal’s favorite music is pop, and she is particularly drawn to the songs of Afghan legends such as Ahmad Zahir, Sarban, and Zahir Howaida.
photo: Rukhshana media.
“Music is love. It calms people down,” she says. “We cannot express the hatred or pain we have in our hearts, but we can convey it through poetry and words.”
Mursal’s creativity is a central part of her life. In addition to playing the guitar, she is skilled in drawing and painting. In her small room, her guitar rests in a corner while a table for drawing is surrounded by canvases. Portraits of Ahmad Zahir and a painted guitar portraying her passion for music.
Mursal alternates between playing and singing in her room and painting her joys and pains. “I like art in general because it allows me to express my happiness or sadness,” she says. “My family used to tell me, ‘Don’t paint, you don’t have a future,’ but I was so interested that I didn’t listen to them or my neighbors. I started my journey toward art. My sister was the only one who supported me.”
Before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan nearly two years ago, Mursal had won first place in a painting exhibition competition. She used to mostly draw subjects from Afghanistan that were positive and uplifting. “My goal was to show people outside Afghanistan that it is not only miserable,” she says. “Afghanistan is beautiful and has talent.”
However, since the arrival of the Taliban, her mood has shifted. “My heart was so full that I started painting images that had a hundred words in them,” she says. “The Girl Crying in the Room and the Captive Girl in a Cemetery Called Afghanistan are two of my artworks that I painted after the Taliban came.”
Mursal learned to paint in 2020, and since then has created 200 paintings. Some were destroyed in the early days of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. “After their arrival, a number of my artworks were destroyed in the workshop,” she recounts. “When the Taliban came, the workshop was open. They entered, hit and broke some paintings, including my works, and after that, our master closed the workshop and threw away some of my works.”
Following the Taliban’s decree banning women from education and working in the country, Mursal decided to launch a free online painting course to help girls interested in drawing and painting.
“[The Taliban] even destroyed the Mother’s Statue at Kabul University. Every day that I hear a word about the destruction of art, I suffer, thinking that all art will be destroyed, and I should no longer paint.”
“But then I thought to myself, instead of feeling disappointed, it would be good to help each other, so I started an online course for Afghan girls,” she says. “So far, I have nearly 50 students whose lessons have progressed. I wanted to help the girls who were shut out of doing studies and art.”
Her new artwork, Captive Girl in a Cemetery Called Afghanistan, features a girl whose eyes, ears, and mouth are tightly held by the hands of Talibs, preventing her from seeing, hearing, or speaking. “Every time I see the painting, I think that it’s me. All these hands are the hands of the Taliban.”
