Three years ago, after surviving a Taliban bombing by a hair’s breadth, Manizha Talash stood on the precipice of freedom. “I don’t know if we can do this,” said her baby brother, his big, sad eyes filled with doubt. She clutched his tiny hand and smiled, “But we have to.” At 18, she fled Afghanistan, heart in her mouth and baby brother in tow, vowing to never look back.
She found herself in Pakistan, the void of a mother more palpable than ever. She spared no effort in bringing up her brother but despite her precocious resilience, she, too, yearned to be taken care of. “It was one of the hardest years of my life, one that I try not to think about,” Manizha confesses, averting her gaze to the fingers she is fiddling with. “We were just two kids, all alone,” she continues, her voice heavy with the weight of those memories. FaceTime calls were her only window to her family and homeland, but it was never enough. Little did she know that she would make history three years later, representing Afghanistan as their first female breakdancer at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The 21-year-old b-girl tells me that she was introduced to breakdancing through a video of a man spinning on his head. Her disbelief at how the feat defied the laws of physics compelled her to watch the video repeatedly, investigating every inch of the dancer’s anatomy—how his arms steadied his frame, how he spun on an imaginary axis, how he kept at it without getting dizzy. In the secrecy of her room, she tried to imitate him. Her reflection in the mirror gaped back at her, surprised by its own fluidity. She knew then that she had to become a breakdancer, and instantly reached out to Superiors Crew, a breakdancing community of 55 men in Kabul who practised in a gym. Barely toeing adulthood, she became the first woman to join them—no mean feat for a young girl in a country that has restricted women’s education, employment, political participation and health care.
When her Zoom window pops up on my screen, I’m momentarily distracted by her cropped, flaming red hair. “My hair used to be blue a while ago. I got bored of it and went red,” she says, laughing at my expression. “I can already feel myself itching to dye it a different colour. Being unique has always been important to me.” There’s another, perhaps deeper, reason for her experiments: “My mother loved doing my hair and it’s my ode to her.” As we discuss her trysts with hair dye, she grimaces at the Mediterranean heat, revealing that Spain has been uncharacteristically hot as of late. But it’s a small price to pay for her new life here. During her time in Pakistan, Manizha desperately searched for a way out. Unbeknownst to her, whispers of her story travelled far and wide, eventually reaching the media. Through this, she was able to get in touch with an Indian journalist who introduced her to the Barcelona-based NGO People Help. In the summer of 2022, the NGO ensured that she arrived in Spain with her brother.
“The kindness that people have shown me makes Spain feel like a home away from home.” Over Manizha’s soft voice, I hear sparrows tittering outside her window and the sounds of Madrid springing into action. She speaks fluent Spanish now and modestly brushes away my compliments of being a fast learner. “In Spain, I took up work at a salon to make ends meet. I picked up the language by eavesdropping on the hairdressers chatting with each other.”
Safe from her turbulent past in the warmth of Spain, Manizha began healing, but something was amiss. “When I first came here, I frantically searched for a place I could practise breaking in but found nothing. For months, I was estranged from the one thing that kept me alive,” she recalls. Isabel, a new friend she’d made, took charge, emailing as many people as possible so that Manizha’s breakdancing journey could continue in Spain. It’s how the manager of the Refugee Team for the Olympics heard about her.
She lights up at the mention of her friends and the unwavering support they have shown her. “The boys in the crew took me under their wing like they were my brothers. There would be people lined up outside the gym, waiting to heckle me the moment I stepped out and accuse me of being shameless.” None of this ever fazed Manizha—she had faith that she was on the right path and the support of her loved ones bolstered her belief. Today, the gym has five girls, and she hopes the number will soon shoot up.
When she is not b-girling, Manizha is brainstorming designs that blend Afghan motifs and contemporary streetwear for her clothing line that is currently in the works. Her mother has been her biggest cheerleader all throughout, sending her encouragement from Afghanistan. “Ever since my father left us,” she pauses for a moment, inhaling sharply, “my mother raised me all alone, filling the shoes of a mother, father and best friend. The aunties around us always judged me but ever since they found out about the Olympics, they’ve pretended to support me. My mother and I laugh about it,” she smiles. In a happy ending that befits her story, Manizha was reunited with her mother, who arrived in Spain a few months ago to support her as she prepares for the Olympics.
Motioning towards her muscles, the to-be Olympian launches into an impassioned speech about the physically demanding nature of breakdancing and how much of a toll it took on her body. “People didn’t know how to classify breakdancing. Is it a dance form, a sport, an art? It’s all of those things and I’m glad that the Olympics has validated it as a sport.” When I ask her how she feels about heading to Paris next month, anticipating a confession of nervousness, she tells me that she’s not competing to win the gold. She’s competing for the women back home who dream about a life bigger than the one they’re born into, like she did. In our books, Manizha Talash is already a winner.
