By: Khaliq Ebrahimi
Translated by: Mohammad Sakhi Rezaie
Rubabah had no dream until she was 14. It is the shortest news about a girl looking for help for days, months and years to find somebody to give her a glass of water to satisfy her thirst. Maybe it is hard for those to understand this when they have not been in the same situation as Rubabah has experienced. For example, “In an afternoon of Kabul cold season when a ray of sunshine comes through the window into the home, You! Yes, you wish sit under the sunshine but are not able to move outside the room and get energy, how devastated would you feel. It is hard to be waiting someone lends you a hand. Not a stranger, but your sister, brother, father, or mother, remember by accident that a member of the family loves the sunshine but can’t use it indiscriminately without their help. Not only this, but from the smallest problems of life to the biggest, he needs help. From eating and drinking to life and impossible dreams, he needs help.” This is the life of Rubbah Mohammadi. The one who invalidates a famous Persian cliché an all-rounder (art pours from every trick); Because no trick works from her hands and feet, so that we can say that art flows from her every trick. All her art depends on her eyes, ears and tongue, nothing more. She has been waiting for many years for a gate to hope and light to be opened and she can move towards that light even if it is two steps. That door of hope has been opened to hear many times but she has not been able to stand up and walk towards it. It is the biggest secret of her life.
She does not remember exactly how old she is because when they were moving from Sabzdarah village of Malistan in Ghazni province to Kabul, her family left the Quran which her date of birth was written on the back of it. But he remembers that in 2003 they left Malistan for Kabul for treatment. As much as they could, her family rented a house in Barchi, and every day their only task was to take Rubabah to the Red Cross Center for treatment, and that too for free. Sometimes she remained in the bed for several weeks and months. Her father worked in Iran to pay for her medical expenses. Her mother, who had several other children to take care of, had one leg in the Red Cross Hospital and the other leg was stuck in front of her other children. it was difficult. It is better to say a few steps more than difficult. Because there was not much hope to recover Rubabah’s ability, and on the other hand, the family’s economy was not strong enough to pay for the car rental and other expenses every day and to be informed about her. Her family made the final decision about Rubabah.
What was that decision? Return Rubabah to her home because they were disappointed in her recovery. It meant helplessness; Leave her alone for as long as she survives and continues to live.
That is, 17 or 18 years later, when Kabul, the capital of the country, fell to the hands of the Taliban, when Ashraf Ghani managed to escape from the battle and survive, when millions of people drowned in an aura of hopelessness and despair. She was a famous artist and lived in the United Arab Emirates and in the city of Abu Dhabi. She had been staying there for less than two years. She used to take orders from merchants, make paintings and make a good living from it. Almost 7 months after the fall of Kabul, she returned to Kabul, but this was not the Kabul where Rababah was disappointed, depressed, waiting, or creating works of art, but she was setting up an art center, and giving motivational speeches to school students. Here, I must write that during the past years, Rababah was able to turn from a hopeless person into a suitable role model for hope and fighting for life, many things had happened, but the collapse of Kabul was something else. During these years, Rubabah had learned to paint with the hand and teeth, from a novice she had made herself among the famous artists of the country, she had created an art gallery and entered several exhibitions. including an art exhibition in the city of Mersin, Türkiye.
But when Rubabah returned to Kabul from the most luxurious city in the world like Abu Dhabi, she faced a hundred percent different situation. She soon found that even if no part of her body functioned properly, even if she had no limbs to commit sin and live a womanly life; Because she is considered among the girls or women of the country, she should sit at home and wait for the opening of a gate to the light. Considering that the wind will not blow for girls’ dreams and there will be no future. Finally, this was the decree of the absent emir of the country, and disobeying it was punishable by whipping in public, humiliation and insult, and imprisonment, and it had been implemented many times. This is how Rubabah was forced to stay at home.
She was threatened several times in 2020. Her art work, located in an area of Dasht Barchi, and was attacked by armed men, and when they threw some hand grenades it exploded, her paintings were all destroyed but Rubabah didn’t give up and continued. She continued to give hope the society.
Rubabah learned from a young age that she could lean the paintbrush with her teeth and turn it artistically on the paper with her head and neck movements, finally by repeating this difficult task, she would produce shapes of flowers and natural landscapes. Of course, at the beginning, she did not know she would become a global celebrity, but she did it for amusement and passing the time. Little by little, when her work picked up and she found a friend to encourage her and teach her some things, she realized that painting is the sunlight that shines through the window into her room in the cold winters of Kabul.
Warm, radiant but far from reach. Just as she needed help to get into the sun, she needed help to learn to paint, and that person had come to her. The person who is not known and Rubabah does not disclose her/his name, and she has not mentioned the name in an interview with the Silk Way Weekly, is the big change maker of her life. I shall not forget. When Rubaba’s business improved, she was famous, she took many orders and worked hard and received incentives. But after the fall of Kabul, since she was not active publicly, she changed the method of her work and lived with it.
Due to her physical appearance, in another words; her difference with other girls who are at the same age with her, after several years working in the field of art, she notices that two issues play a significant role in her life and art work and she loves them a lot and she works on those topics. She loves the face of women and most of her tablets, especially one of them, took four months to be painted.
A scratched face of a woman inspired by a painting in one of the Buddha caves in Bamyan. She says that this is the most expensive painting that she has ever worked on, and of course, this work was also commissioned, and she received three thousand dollars for realizing it. The second thing, which is the source of inspiration in his artistic works, is the culture, customs and traditions and historical and ancient possessions of the Hazaras of Afghanistan. Rubabah says she loves hazaras culture and it is evident in many of her works.
The situation of Kabul after the Taliban take over was painful for Rubabah. Apart from the fact that she had to visit no art gallery, stay at home and have no voice to protest, her artistic concerns were also forbidden. She loved to paint women’s faces and bodies, but she lived in a time when women were housewives and painting pictures of women was a crime. In her artistic work, she paid attention to Hazaras and their culture, but the times were such that Hazaras were the most vulnerable and in danger of genocide. As she herself was a victim of ethnic, religious, sexual and class discrimination; Hazaras collectively suffer from these issues. For the past two or three months, Rubabah has decided not to live in a country whose ruler is an absent mullah with primitive orders. She joined the three or four million refugees in Pakistan who try to reach to a prosperous country and starting a new life(Now she is in Canada). Of course, they suffer to realize their dreams. Though Rubabah loves Afghanistan and its people, she does not want to live under the rule of Taliban.
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