By Haaniya Frotan
Zeba* sat atop the Buddha cliffs in Bamyan province watching the sunset and people below passing by, recalling the days when she sang love ballads while playing the lute-like dambora.
The 54-year-old’s grey hair is peeking out from under her headscarf. Her dark eyes are heavy with sadness.
“Dambora was my only solace in this arduous life, and with the arrival of the Taliban, I lost even that one source of hope,” Zeba said.
She’s not alone. Many artists and musicians have been severely restricted under Taliban rules that ban their craft, and for many, their one source of joy.
The Taliban’s rules against artistic expression and music are also curtailing education in the arts, particularly for women and girls. The measures have severely impacted cultural and artistic enterprise that once thrived in regions like Bamyan.
For Zeba, the loss of the freedom to sing is a profound personal and cultural tragedy. But she’s careful not to blame the Taliban directly.
“Now I am old, I can no longer sing songs, otherwise I wouldn’t have cared about the Taliban,” she said.
New rules and the demise of music
Before Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban in 2021, Zeba was a renowned local singer in Bamyan. Tourists and locals would gather to listen to her warm voice as she played local ghazals on the dambora.
Bamyan was one of the few provinces where young female artists had been encouraged in music in recent years and who breathed new life into the local music scene. Zeba was a key force in that regard.
She began playing many decades ago after stumbling upon the dambora in her husband’s parents home after an arranged marriage at 13 years old.
Now, decades later, her friends said that she broke her dambora herself out of fear of the Taliban when they returned to power in 2021.
The Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice banned the playing of music at all public celebrations soon after the group’s takeover in 2021.
Those who are found to be playing music or sharing it with others have been severely punished and in some cases had their instruments destroyed.
The Taliban sometimes have allowed tarana, which are poems or songs usually in Pashto about Taliban beliefs and behavior.
Self-taught with incredible talent
Zeba said she learned the art of playing music on her own. The songs she mostly sings are familiar folk tunes of Bamyan’s people with themes about impossible dreams, longing, separation, and the joy of reuniting with loved ones.
She described music as a her only safe refuge that made life’s hardships more bearable.
After her marriage, her first husband was killed during Afghanistan’s civil wars of the early 90s when she was 20. She was then forced to marry her husband’s younger brother.
In their home, she endured a lot of violence.
Zeba said her mother-in-law would physically hit her and tried to prevent Zeba from doing activities she enjoyed with her friends.
But Zeba had discovered the delight of her father-in-law’s dambora, and she would take it up whenever her mother-in-law had left the house.
“My father-in-law had a dambora, and I would play it in secret, hiding from my mother-in-law,” she said.
Playing the dambora was considered taboo at that time. Even for men in some cultural settings it was considered a sin, let alone for a woman.
But Zeba said when she sang and played dambora, even if only briefly, she would forget all her problems.
However, tragedy would soon strike her again.
Drawn to music despite taboos
After four years of marriage, when Zeba was barely 25 years old, her second husband walked out, leaving her to raise four children on her own – three daughters and one son.
Two children were from her first husband and two were from her second.
She said her husband just left one day without saying anything to her, and there has been no news of him since.
The later 90s were tumultuous years across the country also. The Taliban had taken power in many parts of the country after the brutal civil war and Bamyan was embedded in poverty.
Zeba was drawn to song and the dambora despite the taboos with her singing was already noticed by people before the Taliban’s stint in power in the 90s.
“Even before the Taliban came, singing as a woman wasn’t easy for me. My neighbors saw me as a sinful widow and advised their daughters and women to stay away from me and my daughters,” she said.
“But at least the government didn’t interfere with my work.”
To make ends meet, Zeba also baked bread. And her daughters, alongside their studies, engaged in embroidery.
After gaining a name, leaving music behind
Now Zeba’s eldest son and daughter are living in Kabul and Herat provinces respectively, while she remains in Bamyan city with her two younger daughters aged 19 and 21.
She introduces herself as a local singer who only sings and plays for herself. But those who knew her before the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 believe that she had much bigger plans for her artistic future.
She had gained some fame, and she herself recalled Farhad Darya, a well-known Afghan artist, gifting her a dambora in appreciation of her musical talent during the second term of Hamid Karzai’s administration.
She also remembered the tourists who sought her out in Bamyan because of her growing following through the media.
Today, Zeba said it’s been almost three years since she last picked up her dambora and sang in public.
She feels weakened by depression and being separated from music.
Sometimes, she turns again in secret to the healing power of music by borrowing the dambora of her neighbour’s son.
“I go to my neighbor’s house. We close the door and windows tightly and we sing and play dambora,” she said.
Her neighbour Ali*, 24, confirmed that Zeba used to drop by, but said that she hasn’t been this year.
“After the Taliban came and they started their door-to-door searches, Zeba broke her dambora. But I had hidden mine down a well,” he said.
“Zeba used to come to our house about once a month to sing and play dambora, but since the beginning of 2024, she hasn’t touched it.”
The incalculable loss of music and culture
A former Bamyan-based composer and singer Esmatullah Alizada, has turned to activism for the rights of musicians. For nearly 13 years, he performed in Afghanistan but today he lives in France after the Taliban’s arrival.
He said the suppression of female singers and those interested in music is leading to a serious loss of cultural talent and artistic diversity, while helping entrench gender inequality and psychological harm on women even more.
Mr Alizada, who has composed numerous pieces for female singers, said supporting women’s rights in music and other artistic and social domains is crucial.
“The suppression of women singers has broader consequences for society, including the promotion and reinforcement of gender inequality. This action sends a message to youth and future generations that women do not have equal rights and opportunities,” he said.
* Names have been changed
