The Hindu : Karzai recalls Shimla days

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 08, 2003

National

National

Karzai recalls Shimla days

By Kanwar Yogendra

Shimla March 7. "Just call me a boy from Shimla and not the head of a state," the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, said here today at the Himachal Pradesh University on the occasion of his being conferred an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature.

Mr. Karzai is an alumnus of the University and came to India as a student when he was 18. He graduated from the Sanatan Dharma Bhargva College and had his Masters in Political Science from the Himachal Pradesh University in 1983. In the early eighties, Mr. Karzai was adviser to the leader of the National Salvation Front of Afghanistan, ANLF.

In 1987, he took over the ANLF's Information Department in Peshawar, Pakistan and subsequently became Director in the Political Department of ANLF. After 1989, he became the Director-General of Foreign Relations in the Afghan Interim Government, based in Peshawar, headed by Sibghatullah Mujaddedi.During 1992-94, he was Deputy Foreign Minister in the interim government, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani. After the fall of Taliban, he became the President of the Transitional State of Afghanistan in June 2002 through the decision of Loya Jigra.

Reminiscing his student days in Shimla, he said he used to stay in the local YMCA and an old building owned by Raj Kumari Amrit Kaur, where once even Mahatma Gandhi had stayed. "I still remember the dal and chapattis, my staple food for many years in a small smoke-filled shop."

But long walks in rain to places like Annadale, Long wood, Wild Flower hall and Advanced Studies are still his most nostalgic moments. ``I still remember the two girls Neeta and Monica of a family I lived with, who taught me English during my college days. I still cherish the clean and straight value system of Shimla.''

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National