Steve McCurry Famous Photograph – The Story Of The ‘Afghan Girl’

From EDITOR's Desk
August 13, 2011

17 years later, the story continues with a simple photograph of a sea green eyed girl when a casual photography by McCurry turned out to be one of those captivating portrait that sear the heart and ran on the cover of National Geographic magazine in June 1985. The shy girl was among hordes of refugees at the refugee camp in Pakistan. The anger of those haunted eyes was apparent, which swept away the photography fraternity and not least the whole world, but after 17 years nobody actually remember her, even her name.

The year is 2011 when a team from National Geography Television & Films brought McCurry to Pakistan to search the immortal face. They searched around Nasir Bagh where the refugee camp still stands lonely among multitude. After showing her photographs to number of people, they came to know the girl in the picture returned to Afghanistan and now lived in the mountains near Tora Bora. So, they decided to hunt the girl.

It took three days to arrive for the EXPLORERS of National Geographic to Afghanistan. From Kabul it took six hour drives and three hour hike to reach her village which was rather gloomy, swallowing lives. They saw her walking around and McCurry instantly recognized her. Her name was Sharbat Gula and she was Pashtun considered as a warrior tribes. It is said Pashtun are only in peace when they are at war. Her age was deceptive, may be 29, 30, 40 or more. Even she was not sure about that. But her eyes were still glowing with ferocity.

She looked much older. Time and hardship snatched her youth. Her skin dried like leather. The geometry of her jaw softened but her defiant stare still enough to disturb the balance of beholder. She had a really hard life; even all Afghans in her age have witnessed the terrible story of twenty-three years of war, 1.5 million killed, 3.5 million refugees.

"We left Afghanistan because of the fighting," said her brother, Kashar Khan, filling in the narrative of her life. He is a straight line of a man with a raptor face and piercing eyes. "The Russians were everywhere. They were killing people. We had no choice." Sharbat lost her parents in Soviet bombings when she was just a child.

She faced ordeals in an age when girls dreamt sweet dreams and she with her three sisters and brother walked to Pakistan. For a week they wandered aimlessly around mountains covered in snow, begging for blankets to keep warm. The terror of Soviet planes forced them to hide in caves.

Sharbat Gula found it immensely difficult to live in the crowd of refugees, so, in the mid 90s she went home to her village. It was perhaps more privation to live in this lonely village shrouded by snow. There were small houses and terraces planted with corn, wheat and rice, some walnut trees but no school, no hospitals, no roads and no portable water.

Her life epitomized hardship and showed the distressing tale of Afghan girls. Presently she lives with her husband Rahmat Gul whom she married at the age of 13 when the groom was mere 16 year old teen. Her husband lives in (there are few jobs in Afghanistan) and works in a bakery. Sharbat has no happy days as such in her whole life, even now she suffers from asthma that limits her stay in Peshwar with her husband because of heat and pollution of Peshwar in summer. She generally stays in the village and cares for her children; they are her life. . Robina is 13. Zahida is three. Alia, the baby, is one. A fourth daughter died in infancy.

In her brief conversation with Steve McCurry, she said everything happened for will of God.