In an excerpt from his new book, Behzad Yaghmaian recounts the journey of an Afghan, whose personal family tragedy compels him to leave the desperate environs of Afghanistan in search of a better life.

By Behzad Yaghmaian

Across the world thousands of Muslims undertake a clandestine journey, desperately seeking to escape lives of oppression and hopelessness. Their travels are both astounding and harrowing stories of courage and loss. In this excerpt from his new book, Behzad Yaghmaian recounts one such journey of an Afghan, Shahrokh Khan, whose personal family tragedy compels him to leave the desperate environs of Afghanistan in search of a better life.

In a small village near Kandahar, Shahrokh Khan was born to a family of farmers. “My father was an agricultural man, growing crops and selling them in the market. We had a normal family,” Shahrokh Khan told me. In December 1979, a few years before his birth, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. Soon the country was the scene of a holy war against the communists. The Russian army left Afghanistan in 1989. A civil war followed. Shahrokh Khan did not have much recollection of the war. “I stayed on the farm most of the time,” he said. “Sometimes I went with my father on business trips to the city. We did not do much. We were a simple family.”

Shahrokh Khan’s father wished his son to grow up away from the violence of the civil war and become an educated man. So after the boy finished third grade, his father sent him to Peshawar, a city in neighboring Pakistan where many Afghan refugees were given shelter. “My father wanted me to be unlike the others in Afghanistan,” Shahrokh said.

“In the beginning I was very depressed. Integration was so very difficult. I would cry all the time.” These were the formative years of his life. Living in hostels with Pakistanis and other Afghans, Shahrokh Khan continued his studies in Peshawar, learned English, and developed a love for schooling. Slowly he became accustomed to a life away from home. He had many friends, other boys from his school and the hostel. Salim, a Pakistani youth who was a classmate in Peshawar for six years, was his closest companion. They spent their free time playing cricket, watching Bollywood movies, and dancing in their rooms to Bollywood music. An Indian actor, also called Shahrukh Khan, was his idol. Like many boys his age, he wanted to grow up and be a movie star.

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