Steve McCurry
Bambina afghana

Rest assured Gula, I have no intention of harming you. I just want to enter your world without you realizing, without any noise. Are you ready to talk?

Your gaze already says it all, little one. Those cold eyes of yours, as if they want to inflict moral damage on your origins, are speaking.

Here in Peshawar you are safe, or rather, you should be safe. I realize that in Pakistan the situation isn't much better, but it seems less painful compared to that of your country, perpetually ravaged by war. The Soviet Union wanted to attack your land and your village. It wanted to create its own Vietnam. From some point of view, it seems they wanted to fix those exaggerations that in the West seem so absurd...

Then the Americans arrived with their frustrations. Winning the Cold War, avenging the defeat in Vietnam, eliminating the communists... but what do you know, my little one. And you don't even want to know. Your unbelieving eyes can't comprehend what happened to your home. When you hoped it would rain water, that would bring forth some flowers, droplets came down like bombs. Listening to your escape, up the barren mountains, touched my heart. Your family killed...

Try to calm down, love. Soothe your breath. All I have to do is press this button a bit and your gaze becomes immortal. What eyes... Don't move, there we go. I have to be quick because it's hard for me to be in contact with Afghan women. I have to find the best moment. I want the iris to marry what emerges from the wear of your drape, create an effective alchemy with its color, and warm you from the wall behind you...

Those splendid hair intimidated by the wind. A strand cannot hold back and lets itself go downward without damaging the mirror complex some deity has created for you. Some small spots on your amazed face don’t disturb at all. It looks like a touch of makeup carelessly laid on your skin. As if it has been forgotten, timidly abandoned by the wayside. The street is your makeup, right? A light mud that somehow wanted to rent your still soft cheeks.

You still hear their clamor, right? Like a latent nightmare, they skillfully maneuver among your innocent dreams, still echoing among your naive thoughts. Look at me again, Gula. Let me drown in that splendid sea of yours. Intense, luminous, devastating.

It was 1984. Her face ended up on the cover of "National Geographic" becoming famous everywhere. Years later, McCurry met her again. Sharbat Gula, the little Pashtun girl, had returned to Afghanistan, in a village separated from the rest of the world. And there was still war, the civil one ignited by the Taliban.

A simple noise to cover seems to be conquering the deafening one of war devices. It's similar to a rustle. A strange background noise, sweet but imposing.

That of the sea...