I want to start noting stories that deserved more than they received, so here goes. ‘The Afghan Girl’ is one of the more known stories when it comes to exploration of eastern narratives. I always felt a strange connection with this photo – I saw it when I was a teenager and I immediately felt like I could have been her, she could have been me, life is a bizarre lottery.
A unique guilt comes with being a part of a diaspora – I have survivors guilt, because here I am drinking a £3.50 coffee and complaining that it took too long to connect to the wifi, and here is the Afghan Girl, someone who endured more pain than I could fathom. Our geographical locations are pure chance but our lives are so different as a result, but we share the same eyes and so I often find myself thinking of her, and I know that sounds weird, but here we are.
The Afghan Girl has a name, and she deserves to be called by it. Sharbat Gula was born in 1972. Her mother died in Afghanistan when she was eight and afew years later, she was living in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan with her father and siblings because of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
She was literally a child when National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry visited the camp in 1984 and insisted on capturing her for the magazine. The cover went on to be one of the most iconic issues they ever did, and the picture of Sharbat was soon dubbed the ‘The First World’s Third World Mona Lisa’ and honestly I am not sure how I feel about that title, but moving on.
Despite the success of the cover, Sharbat received nothing from it for many years. Her eyes were meant to reflect fear of war, she later said it was actually the of having her photo taken. She was married at 13, had four children, one died. She found out she was a cover girl in 2002, 18 years after the photo had been taken. Her husband died in 2012. Sharbat’s second daughter also passed away, leaving her baby daughter behind. In 2016, Sharbat was imprisoned for allegedly obtaining Pakistani ID illegally. She was then deported back to Afghanistan after living in Pakistan for 35 years, a place that had become her home.
Good did come from the famous photo. It led to the National Geographic setting up a charity for Afghan girls and evoked sympathy around the world for those suffering in Afghanistan, a landlocked place, a historically unconquerable place, a place of resilience, surreal pain and natural beauty.
In 2017, the Afghani government gifted Gula a home in Kabul for her and her kids. I hope she is doing well.
Maz Halima 
I came came across your blog while ‘googling’ the phrase ‘Pakistani DNA’ and decided to have a look around your other blog posts.
I’m so glad I did. Now I know the story behind the iconic image of Gula, The Afghan Girl. I feel privileged to know a little of her story, thank you.
Thanks very much Zahid, I appreciate you reading
she is the most beautiful girl to ever exist upon the planet earth or any other planet in the entire cosmos. Ten year old Sharbat Gula is like my spirit animal, I think of her to summon strength and power. I think she has powers like the kids in Akira (manga, anime film). I wish girls embraced her as a role model. I never saw her like some poor little oppressed afghan refugee girl. I always thought, since first time I ever saw her, which was around 2001 when National Geographic did a feature about returning to find her etc and showed both the original photo and photo of her as an adult etc, that she radiated power and dignity and seemed intense in her personality. I think if anyone was ever dumb enough to try and harm her or abuse her she would have shown her natural karate moves and kicked their butts. I like the pic where she is covering her lower face, I speculate she is actually smiling a bit there as it was before her teacher told her it’s ok to show her face for the photograph etc and I speculate she felt a bit excited. There is an interview with her from more recent times on YouTube where she smiles shyly sometimes and a few other pics from recent times if her smiling showing her teeth. I think it’s a shame in a sense that such a beautiful girl only has a few photographs to show of her life. How lucky people in her daily life were to see her in the days of her youth she must have been striking to see. I am trying to creatively imagine how she may have looked using AI and apps and whatnot by finding girls from similar cultures with similar features etc to make pics of her in different outfits and showing more of her hair. They are tastefully done imho, but I suppose might be considered like an exaggerated reality form. I don’t want to disrespect her or her legacy, I just want to preserve her beauty forever in fresh ways. It’s interesting to experiment with makeup apps and stuff because I find that contrary to what some might think, the various imperfections of her skin actually enhance her beauty and if I smoothen out her skin and remove various marks or dirt or whatever it takes away something special, so I am always surprised to check back with the original pic at jsut how perfect she already is there. I think Kardashian girls would kill to look like Sharbat Gula does and did, all naturally too. I always wonder about her personality and mental life, like what are and were her interests in life? She has said if she could relive her life she would have continued her education and not got married at age 13 but I wonder if in her own ways she kept up with things that interested her like with library books or whatever she may have had available in her country. I wonder what music she likes and if she has favorites close to her heart or songs that give her goosebumps and chills when she hears them randomly in public, I wonder how much of western culture she has seen or been exposed to, like has she seen Titanic? Harry Potter? Jurassic park? I wonder if she has seen these or other films and enjoyed them with her kids, I love to imagine her doing stuff like that and living her life. I always feel so lonely, I wish 10 year old Sharbat Gula was my friend and we went on adventures together and just spent time together. I bet she was really smart and cool at that age. Even the way she wears her clothes seems like an expression of her coolness. She sort of has some kind of Afghan grunge style lol. I love how her hands look a bit dirty and dusty too like she has been out playing with her friends running around and isn’t obsessed about being clean. My cat Althea died in 2021, I love Althea more than Sharbat Gula but basically Sharbat is #2 in my world. I think she would like Althea as she was a very wise and cool cat. She is a ghost now and haunts me but also seems to be my guardian angel. She haunts me because she is mad at me for times I ignored her and was a selfish self involved moody human and I do genuinely deeply regret it so I accept the haunting and just try to get through it, but she protects me like guardian angel because i loved her deeply and we had many nice sweet loving times too. It’s complicated.