By: Hafez
Translated by: Mohammad Sakhi Rezaies
In an interview with Ali reza Asahi, the program presenter asked him about the conditions of his life. Until that moment, he talked about his championships. But when he was asked about his economic condition, he was on the verge of tears. Two or three time He struggled to continue his conversation normally, but couldn’t. He apologized the presenter and cried in front of the camera and on the stage.
At the time of crying, he ate his anger and talked about the bad condition of his life.
At the time of crying, he tried to manage his feeling and talk about the bad situation of his life. His eyes filled with tears, cut, with a pain that he did not want to tell in public, he talked about his children. He said about Kaihan and Arman that they did not have enough food to eat.
It could be seen in the color, face and language of his body that he is in difficulty, but he said with a suppressed grudge, “I ate in the other room. I am not with my children.” What he meant was that he could not eat a chicken breast, but his two sons eat bread and tea in front of his eyes.
The story of eating a chicken breast is very sad. The boys think their father is a hero while he is not. They think they will not remain hungry because they have a father. They think no one can oppress them because they have a father. They think they will not be belittled because they have a father. They think that their father has their backs. Taha Hossain, a famous and blind Egyptian writer, wrote in his memoirs his young daughter imagined her father as a hero for years in all her childhood games. The hero of any game she was not able to play. She though if she could not escape, her father could. If she was not strong against her competitor, but her father was. If she can’t see and notice many things, but her father could. But the poor girl did not know that while she imagined her father as a her, he has been a blind poor ma who has been scared in his loneliness room and sometimes he slept squatting and cried in silence.
As Taha Hussain’s daughter, Asahi’s sons may did not know about the Suppressed grudge of their father. They did not know how their father was sad while eating the breast of the chicken. Maybe they didn’t know that their father was constantly paying back the price of the hero and that bread did not go down his throat every night.
But the father knew how painful it was. The night he ate the chicken breast, and his wife and children could not eat it, that breast of chicken became a grudge at his throat before the media.
Asahi was a world bodybuilding champion. He had raised up the flag of the country in the world bodybuilding championship for two times. He had also recently recognized an internationally coaching certificate from the World Bodybuilding Federation. The people of Kabul who had seen him said he was always singing a song with himself. He had studied Persian literature and was a skillful painter.
But among the vast amount of honor, he was also a huge amount of grudge and misery. He was an outstanding person that has been constantly discriminated and neglected. He was a diligent child and a self-made social hero who never had equal opportunities. To achieve one honor, he should have neglected all other ones. If he wanted to gain honor for his country, his family shall have stayed hungry. If he wanted to train the children of other people, his own children had no one to train them. If he wanted to be on media, a big grudge shall have been felt in his throat. If he wanted to improve the status of the country in the world, his children, Arman and Kaihan, shall have starved.
Explaining Asahi’s pains is not an easy task for us, as we always care about the people after they are dead. We don’t know how much Asahi was suffering. How much bread was stuck in his throat. How much he cried secretly and silently for his sons and family. But in his last words one can easily notice his pains were heavier than his strong and big body.
In a country and under a government that one can’t talk about the ethnic and historical oppression and of the people who you can’t talk about their differences and hypocrisy, Asahi talked about all of these with his tears. His tears, but much more clearly, are reminiscent of the same sad words of Mike Tyson, another self-made and discriminated world champion, who told his children, “I became a champion so they don’t have to.”
But Asahi did not have such opportunities. Because he saw that even after he was a champion, his children again suffered hunger and he starved to death.
Ali Reza Asahi, a tow time world bodybuilding champion died on Thursday, 23 Jan, 2025, in Kabul.
The National Bodybuilding Federation of Afghanistan did not announce the cause of his death. But close sources to Asahi said he died due to a heart attack.
In 2023 and 2024, Alireza Asahi won the gold medal in bodybuilding and in the category of veterans in the world championships of this field.
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