This is a very rare event now but there was a time when the streets and houses of Kabul made you sigh deep from your heart. Wherever you looked, you could see the ruined houses, shops, buildings and even the parks and hospitals were also not kept out of this open firing. In all these places, you could see the spots where the bullets had made their holes while in some places, a wall or part of a building was being removed away by a rocket or a mortar shell. One wondered how hundreds of bullets could have been fired on a single wall but then one realized the fact that these were the walls and buildings that faced the war and bloodshed of more than thirty years and like any other war in the world, the rule also applied to our civil war that, ‘In war and love, everything unfair is fair’.

There were the conditions when Kabul was held by four different and opposing powers in a way that each one of them controlled one corner of the city and they inadvertently and heedlessly fired rockets and bombs towards each other and there was not present any concept of accuracy or targeting the enemy target rather it was regarded quite satisfactory if one rocket out of ten rockets landed on the enemy hideouts while nine of them targeted the innocent and neutral civilians and the loss of civilians was absolutely ignored.

This bloody game continued for three decades and left nothing in a good shape. Buildings are repaired, yet still there are many buildings in Kabul that tell us the stories of those dark days that this city faced in all those years. Old buildings have been grounded and replaced by new and modern buildings but the feeling of loss cannot be easily forgotten by hiding the bullet marks from our walls and leveling down the houses that tell the story of destruction and barbarism.

After the war was over and peace was restored in our cities, ten years passed and money was spent like water to rebuild the infrastructure but still it looks as if it will take many years and a lot of money until we come to restore our infrastructure completely and make all of the organs of state fully functional.

A friend of mine decided to rebuild his house and for this, he hired some workers to demolish his building. I was present on the spot when the three workers were very active in leveling down his house and in just two days, everything was grounded. But then started the lengthy work of construction of the building in which every brick was to be kept with utmost care and planning and every next was carried out with an aim and objective. It took many months before the building was completed and by then, my friend had borrowed some money as his allocated money had not sufficed for the purpose and this lengthy work had made him morally and physically tired.

Once, a school was shifted to a new building. The building was constructed very beautifully and school administration decided to buy each and everything absolutely new for this school but with the passage of every day, administration felt more and more regret to its decision. In the beginning, a big list of necessary objects was made and purchased but the problem did not finish here as every day, a new requirement came into surface and it looked as if the requirements were never going to finish. Anyhow, after a year or more, school administration felt relieved when each and everything needed for the school was adequately provided. Till then, a lot of money had been spent and a lot of purchasing work had been done.

It is very sad to see that the evil of war is still busy in destroying the houses, buildings, cities and infrastructure of so many places and its recent bitter example is Syria where a beautiful and well-established country is being destroyed. With the increasing intensity of war and air strikes, we see more and more destroyed and ruined houses and cities. At present, it may not be felt so much but when the war will be over and there will come the stage of the rebuilding of all these, it will not be very easy and the buildings and cities that have been demolished in months, will take years or maybe decades to restored.

Well-established cities and infrastructure provide an opportunity for the citizens to carry out the activities that bring prosperity to all but when the war comes and these possibilities are leveled down, then there remains no prosperity, no recreation and no progress and no kind of activity for the betterment of humanity and civilization can be carried out.

In National Geographic Channel, one of the most popular and most-viewed programs is ‘Mega Structures’ in which marvelous and giant buildings, factories, bridges and other similar structures are shown. No doubt, it is very exciting to watch how engineers make perfect plan to build a structure that benefit the thousands of people, but more interesting to see is the well-established houses, streets, bridges, and other infrastructures. True worth of these things may not be felt in their presence, but when these things will not be there and people will suffer to manage their small works, true worth of these things will be felt and their absence will throw the people many years backward.

A friend of mine was telling me about a cantonment area of one of our neighboring countries where he had gone to get treatment from a hospital. He was really inspired by the beautiful roads, neat and well-planned buildings and other similar structures. I had to agree with his statement that it will take years before we also come to make such a beautiful cantonment area to our police and military. In past, we had such beautiful arrangements, but once we lost them, it has become almost impossible to establish similar places.

It is a place of thankfulness that we have briskly developed our war-torn cities and towns and once again, we are going to enjoy the infrastructure that is must for the prosperity and progress of people. In this regard, it is necessary that people should understand the worth and value of these things and avoid all those things that can risk the stability and existence of these worthy things.

Which country or nation we may take, all these start with the development of hatred and differences among the people. When people don’t show sensitiveness towards the sufferings of others, or don’t try to provide them with the rights that they take for themselves or when the people don’t get close to each other and a silent and invisible gulf is created among them, this destructive lava keeps accumulating and when it erupts out, it destroys whatever comes in its way. It is strange that we miss an important and clearly visible point; if lack of communication and positive interaction can result in a gulf between the people, love and respect can work as an adhesive to bring them close to each other. This is the solution that we need to adopt if we don’t want to face the evil of destruction once again.