Author
Ana Tomas
Ana Tomas is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Anthropology and Ethnology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), and the Center for South Asian Studies (CEIAS), Paris, France and is Awarded with a Doctoral Fellowship from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), Ministry Technology of Science, and Higher Education, Government of Portugal
Swat, Pakistan, year 2007. The Taliban partly deface the Jahanabad Buddha, a colossal sculpture (ca. 7th century CE), which corroborates a past of mosaic intertwined by empires, religions, and peoples.
Prelude: At five o’clock in the afternoon It is five o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun begins to disappear through the verdant mountains. The valleys, where life and death dwell side by side, swallow the sun. Through the cardinals of history, kissing the river that snakes its way, crawling, amidst the fertile lands painted with rice, wheat and corn. The river leaves in its passage a winged tattoo that, at times, brings a trail of destruction. As reminiscent of a time when the Nāga Apalāla, a sea dragon living near the…
Prologue: sketches on space “About four or five miles farther up the valley, beyond the Yúsufzí boundary, there are few hamlets, the two principal of which are called Chúr-ra'i, on the east bank, and Tírátaey, on the opposite side. These villages are inhabited by the descendants of the Akhúnd, Darwezah. At the capture of Tírátaey Karím-Dad lost his life. I was informed by the people here, that, some years since, a number of dead bodies were discovered buried in a mound at the side of a hill near Tírátaey. The bodies were…
