Hearken to this story:
Kandahar, Afghanistan – In a small store off a bustling avenue within the centre of Kandahar metropolis, Haji Muhammad Sultan is busy at work.
It’s an early morning in March and the primary clients of the day are flooding into the bazaar outdoors. Contained in the store, the fragile chip of Sultan’s chisel towards smooth plaster inside a brass, palm-sized mould is barely audible. Sultan cradles the mould gently in his wrinkled fingers, chipping away at what lies inside: a brand new set of enamel.
As soon as the plaster has been eliminated, Sultan friends down at his work, turning the dentures over slowly between his fingers. “They have to be excellent,” he says with a small smile.
Sultan’s household’s denture enterprise was established 80 years in the past by his grandfather, Haji Gul Muhammad, in Afghanistan’s second-largest metropolis. Sultan claims it was the primary of its sort within the nation, the one store making handmade dentures, one thing that’s laborious to confirm though residents of Kandahar will inform you as a lot.
Sultan’s father, Haji Nazar Muhammad, took over from his father whose craft he discovered from a younger age. A 1998 {photograph} of Sultan’s father by the American photographer Steve McCurry – who photographed Afghanistan’s individuals and landscapes for 35 years – reveals the grey-white bearded enamel maker seated in his easy storefront in Kandahar. He’s immersed in his delicate work, a row of enamel caressed in his fingers. A black bicycle stands in entrance of a desk lined with dentures.
Sultan has continued the household legacy, taking up the enterprise after his father died in 2008 and making dentures on the wood workbench featured in McCurry’s {photograph}.
He is aware of little of how extensively McCurry’s photograph had been seen outdoors Afghanistan, however he remembers the photographer taking the image.
Along with his white turban and lengthy beard, Sultan bears a putting resemblance to his father. “Typically individuals ask me if I’m Haji Nazar Muhammad as a result of I appear like my father,” the 65-year-old chuckles. “When my eldest son grows previous, he’ll look similar to me additionally.”
