Afghan artist Robaba Mohammadi read the Chinese tea leaves on time –to use the proverbial phrase for dreamers like her –needing a wider stage to perform.
She did not let her partial paralysis get in the way of her dreams. Her options now are unlimited –one canvas with lots of color pencils, brushes and paint, at a time.
Robaba’s struggle dovetails Shaheedi’s. “Being a woman in Afghanistan requires guts,” says female tattoo artist Suraya Shaheedi.
It’s been over two years since Shaheedi started her mobile tattoo shop in the capital, Kabul.
Both dreamers have this: they can’t leave the profession they love –as Saheedi puts it. Both have different reasons though.
Robaba challenges her physical limitations with painting, and Shaheedi tests the boundaries of her passion –the ink-on-skin drawings she does. Her ustomers are men or women “doesn’t matter to me. I do tattoos for both,” says Shaheedi, a 26-year-old, divorced single mother.
After decades of war, Afghans want peace. Both appear to be doing what they love to do without fear of militants barging in. The US-Taliban historical peace deal is in place, after 17 years of war (unwinnable) that cost several trillion dollars to park it in the boneyard.
