“Some aeroplanes started to fly above the city early in the morning and there was some shooting,” says Anna Maria, now 88, with a tone so nonchalant that she might have been describing an unmemorable, low-budget action film. As it happens, with the Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, out of the country that summer, the military rose up and seized control, ending more than two centuries of royal rule. Although it was alarming, the coup was relatively bloodless. Anna Maria half-smiles at the memory, shakes her head of bright white curls, then matter-of-factly sums up the dramatic turn of events: “One person fell in the river and drowned. That was that. The king never came back.”
This story is from the March 2021 edition of Tatler Hong Kong.
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This story is from the March 2021 edition of Tatler Hong Kong.
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