the persian art of cursing

The scene: A Kabul traffic jam. No lanes, no street lights, dust everywhere. Everybody's honking, nobody's moving. Landmine victims balance their thigh stumps on crutches in the center of the road, their hands outstretched for change; other beggars are the women with dust-streaked burkas holding babies with sore splotchy skin - the women wailing but their babies deathly silent - and the orphans, some as young as 4 or 5, darting in and out of the cars selling pieces of gum or trying to wash your windshield (with no water, just a scrap of rag). Some of these boys actually press their face up against your window and just sob.

Among all this suffering there's a certain salvation in the art of the exquisitely delivered curse, of which Afghans are - at least according to them - the world's masters. I'll let you be the judge, but here was today's exchange, between a bicyclist and a taxi driver; the taxi cut off the bicycle and in return, the bicyclist slapped the car as he rode off. The driver opened his door, leaned out and shouted: "Fuck your mother from the front and your sister from the back!"

To which the bicyclist, fast disappearing into the dust responded, "Fuck your grandfather's bones!"