Busting Some Afghani Myths

Not a single Afghan I’ve met is a character from Khaled Hosseini. Being nice to your wife isn’t related to nationality.

Photo of what my Afghan patients look like, though they don’t always wear white, and they look ten years older than this guy. Photo by The Chuqur Studio on Unsplash.

Usually, all my patients are Indian.

A few come from Afghanistan. In all, I have treated seven Afghan men and two women. I know, it is a small sample size.

In 2008, when I treated my first Afghan patient, I wondered what they do in crowded India, overflowing with its own labour force.

Afghans in India lend money and sell carpets.

Of course! Persian rugs. Just like in Aladdin.

For the first ten years, all the patients I saw who came from Afghanistan were men.

In 2018, two Afghan men brought their wives for dental treatment. The wives spoke no Hindi or English.

One couple had a four-year-old daughter, born courtesy an Indian gynecologist’s IVF. They were trying for a second child.

The other Afghan couple was in India for the first time, to try the IVF the first couple had recommended to them.

IVF or In-vitro-fertilization costs around a lakh of rupees, around $1350. He came…