CANVAS OF WAR A presentation of an artefact from Afghanistan made in the refugee camps of Pakistan

An innocent acceptance of a war around A place where ugly rules, beauty is nasty too. So you sleep my child On this carpet of dreams Woven for you by your father and uncles and cousins And now mother and aunts and sisters. For us these are the flowers and This is the grass This is what is growing wild on the hill sides of Kabul and Kandahar When my brother who was visiting Pakistan in 1998,bought this carpet from Peshawar and showed it to me I hardly had anything to say to him until my little girl pointed out the choppers in the rug .I was quite amazed but it was not my stuff .I still liked my thick pile woollen and silk carpets. Russia had lost and Afghanistan was still at war with whom no one knew. And then 9.11 happened. And as I was listening to the CNN with tears in my eyes I saw this carpet lying in the corner of my Mother's living room. And I knew what had happened. My indifference and lack of interest in the plight of a nation forced them to choose an enemy. The war in Afghanistan did not start in December of 2001.It was going on since the day the first planeload of Arms and ammunition arrived from a super power 20 years ago to hire a nation as mercenaries to fight another rival superpower. Whatever the consequences, however the results there are no winners and there shall be none. In war today, everyone loses. While working on a presentation for the education department at the art gallery of Ontario, I got an opportunity to display this piece for the docents and explain to them the irony of the symbols depicting the design sense of a nation at war .The whole theme coincided with the ongoing war and the Canvas of War exhibition which was of course planned way ahead of the 9/11 and its consequences. This piece portrayed a side of the issue that no one was ready to listen to at that time but which turned into a huge fiasco by the end of 2002 .The expansion in the war plans has taken place because we justified the Afghan war. I feel that it made many people realize that there are two sides to every story and none of those sides can be justified .No amount of ticker tape parade shall declare a winner. This sad and beautiful piece is a poignant reminder of human resilience and acceptance. Terrorism is a reaction to tyranny It tells us that in today's times there is nothing worse than ignorance and insolence. These are two forces today and combating it is the challenge of 21st century. These are the flip sides of the same coin Description of the artefact. This is a carpet woven with wool and the dimensions are approximately 6 feet by 4 feet. The pattern has guns, grenades, choppers and other ammunition articles where there should be floral and leaf design .The style is cubical, typical of the nomadic tribes of Afghanistan roaming near the northern borders of Pakistan and the southern Central Asian states.