KOLKATA: Rugby had taken Zaffar Khan back to his roots in Afghanistan. Born in India and raised in Kolkata, the 36-year-old rugby player of Afghan origin had helped Afghanistan set up its national rugby team. He had also been trying to help the Afghan rugby board set up a national team for girls since 2019. The pandemic and then the Taliban takeover have pulled the curtain down on Khan’s rugby mission in the war-torn country.
“In Kabul, which is a more liberal and cosmopolitan city, parents had started sending their daughters to train for rugby. Women coaches were being appointed. If the situation had not changed this way, the dream of an Afghan national girls’ rugby team could have been achieved in a year or two. What is happening in that country is heart-breaking,” said Zaffar, who currently is based in Oman.
Khan’s parents migrated from the Paktia province to India in the 70s during the Soviet invasion. His parents lived in Bokaro for five years before moving to Bengal.
A budding cricketer as a young boy, Khan had to leave cricket owing to a back injury. Former British diplomat Paul Walsh introduced him to rugby.
As a teenager, Khan started playing rugby for Jungle Crows founded by Walsh. He later went on to play in the Indian national rugby team. He first visited Kabul in 2010 to spread awareness about the game and also visited his ancestral place in Paktia.
“I had a scary encounter with the Taliban. Even though I speak Pashto, I am a Kolkata boy and my accident sounded different. They were suspicious and interrogated me for 45 minutes till my uncle came to my rescue,” Khan told TOI.
A few months later, Abdul Khalil, who was working to set up the Afghan Rugby Federation, contacted Khan. He agreed to train Afghan youths. He has made several trips since then to coach and bring in more youths into the game. “Apart from the national men’s team, we could set up 17 rugby teams from different provinces,” said Khan.
Apart from coaching rugby in a few other countries, he had been in cities like Bangalore to coach children under the Khelo Rugby initiative.
