Defying the Taliban, 1 bad movie at a time

[Robb]

http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/2410550,CST-NWS-afghan20.article">Defying the Taliban, 1 bad movie at a time

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- In real life, he's a pharmacist, a polite young man who dispenses antibiotics and advice in a tiny Jalalabad shop barely 40 miles from where Osama Bin Laden disappeared into the mountains.

But when evening falls, when Zhaid Khan shuts the pharmacy's gates and sends his young assistant home, he becomes someone else. Then, he's a lover (albeit a chaste one). He's a singer (or, at least, a lip-syncher). He's a fighter, a hero, a defender of the powerless.

You've never heard of him. But Zhaid Khan is a movie star.

The quiet pharmacist is the chiseled face, the rippling muscles, the romantic hero of the minuscule Pashto-language vision of Hollywood set amid the towns and mountains of eastern Afghanistan. It's a region where American drones regularly hover overhead, Taliban attacks come all too regularly, and it takes more than a little courage to be an actor.

Khan is famous across Jalalabad. Fans sometimes come to the pharmacy to gawk at him and ask for autographs. Sometimes, though, the Taliban seek him out, too. They leave him notes in the night, warning that they'll burn down his shop and kill him. One day, he fears, they'll follow through on their threats......

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