{"id":81392,"date":"2016-02-10T19:57:26","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T19:57:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/lib\/baba-kabir-gardener-of-the-ruined-palace\/"},"modified":"2016-02-10T19:57:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-10T19:57:26","slug":"baba-kabir-gardener-of-the-ruined-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/baba-kabir-gardener-of-the-ruined-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"Baba Kabir, gardener of the ruined Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KABUL (SW): Baba Kabir has been gardening the lands around the epic Darul Aman Palace in Kabul for decades now.<\/p>\n<p>Talking to Salam Watandar, he said that the land upon which the majestic palace was constructed belonged to his father and was sold to the then King Amanullah Khan.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the King bought the land from his father to build the palace on. The Afghan King also allowed Kabir&rsquo;s parents not to move from the area.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>He recalled that his job at the Palace was to babysit the King&rsquo;s children whom he treated like his own children. Baba Kabir has a lot of memories of the Kings&rsquo; children as well as luxury and warm hospitalities of the Queen for guests.<\/p>\n<p>He recounted that he fell ill when the Khan&rsquo;s monarchy collapsed. &ldquo;I had to spend several years in bed, and at one point decided to put an end to my life&rdquo;, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Daraul Aman Palace was badly damaged during the civil wars in Afghanistan. The only things now left are the bullet-riddled pillars, damaged roofs and windows.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>Baba Kabir has kept the areas around the palace green, which has given the Palace a paradoxical view.<\/p>\n<p>In the abandoned palace, Baba Kabir has implanted flowers and is paid afn 5,000 for this by the Kabul Municipality.<\/p>\n<p>He said even if he did not receive this amount of payment, he would still continue to work passionately to keep the garden around the Palace green.<\/p>\n<p>Vital to note, the map for the Darul Aman Palace was designed by German engineers and it took Afghan engineers two years to build it.<\/p>\n<p>One of Baba Kabir&rsquo;s wishes is to see the palace reconstructed and walk in the gardens around it and enjoy the greenery of what he has planted.<\/p>\n<p>ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baba Kabir has been gardening the lands around the epic Darul Aman Palace in Kabul for decades now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":81393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-81392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security","tag-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}