In the Afghan city of Herat, Sakhi’s small studio was covered in wood shavings as he skillfully shaped another rubab, his country’s national musical instrument.
Despite a Taliban onslaught that is stifling music in Afghanistan, Sakhi has been creating two rubabs every month for decades and is unwilling to put down his tools.
Sakhi, surrounded by rubabs in various levels of completion, remarked, “I know only this work and I need to make money somehow,”
However, the craftsman in his fifties, whose name has been changed for his protection along with that of other people interviewed by AFP, stated that “cultural value” is far more important to him than money.
